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CAPE COD 



BY 



HENRY D. THOREAU 

AUTHOR OF " A WEEK ON THE CONCORD," " WALDEN, 
" EXCURSIONS." " THE MAINE WOODS." ETC. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
BY 

ANNIE RUSSELL MARBLE 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

PUBLISHERS 



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Copyright, 1907, 
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Introduction . v 

I. The Shipwreck . . ... . . 3 

II. Stage-coach Views 18 

III. The Plains of Nauset . . .29 

IV. The Beach 54 

V. The Wellfleet Ovsierman . . 76 

VI. The Beach Again 98 

VII. Across the Cape 124 

VIII. The Highland Light . . . .144 

IX. The Sea and the Desert . . .170 



X. Provincetown 



204 



iii 



INTRODUCTION. 

During the last thirty years, many of the more 
remote and isolated sections of New England have 
become popular with summer tourists and cottagers. 
Cape Cod has shared in this invasion from visitors and 
yet has maintained, to a large extent, its natural out- 
lines of landscape and many of its primitive customs. 
Groups of cottages have been built along the coast 
where formerly was only a sandy beach without any 
sign of human life. The hamlets and villages of fifty 
years ago — Truro, Chatham, Provincetown, Yar- 
mouth — are now active towns, reaping commercial 
benefits from tourists. In spite of such changes, the 
aspects of nature and the traits of the native inhabit- 
ants are still akin to those described by Thoreau, 
half a century ago, in his graphic narrative, *'Cape 
Cod." 

In a characteristic style, direct and vivid, he stated 
at the beginning the purpose of his excursions and 
the routes that were followed: ''Wishing to get a 
better view than I had yet had of the ocean, which, 
we are told, covers more than two -thirds of the globe, 
but of which a man who lives a few miles inland may 
never see any trace, more than of another world, I 
made a visit to Cape Cod in October, 1849, another 
the succeeding June, and another to Truro in July, 
1855; the first and last time with a single companion, 

V 



vi INTR ODUC TION. 

the second time alone." This statement, written 
before the earlier chapters v/ere published in maga- 
zines in 1855, does not include a fourth excursion in 
June, 1857, which he mentioned in letters to his 
friends, Harrison Blake and Daniel Ricketson.^ To 
the latter he wrote, with enjoyable memories of this 
trip, saying, *'I travelled the length of Cape Cod on 
foot." From his letters and references in his journal, 
the reader gains the impression that Thoreau, as a 
pedestrian, found his greatest satisfaction in the earlier 
and later excursions of 1849 and 1857. As a rule of 
conduct, he scorned all artificial modes of travel, and 
rode in trains and stage-coaches only when compelled 
to do so by weakness or excessive distance. In his 
essay on "Walking" he has emphasized, not alone the 
exhilaration gained by long walks, but also the keen 
meditative knowledge of nature thus studied. When 
he went to Cape Cod, in the latter part of July, 1855, 
he was compelled to ride over the longer routes and 
to content himself with "a- few languid walks" along- 
shore, during the first days of his sojourn. For two 
or three months he had suffered from weakness, due 
to one of the severe attacks of bronchitis which as- 
sailed him occasionally in the last ten years of his Hfe. 
He wrote to his friend Blake that he had been com- 
pelled to do nothing but lie on his back "and wait for 
something to turn up." ^ In the same letter he spoke 
of a suggestion by his friend Channing, that he 
should join him and go to Cape Cod for a few days, but 
he added, "I should not venture to propose myself as 
the companion of him or of any other peripatetic man." 

1 " Familiar Letters," pp. 359, 366. 
- Ihid., pp. 301-302. 



INTRODUCTION. vii 

The advice of his friend prevailed, however, and 
Thoreau and Channing spent a week or more at 
North Truro, lodging with the Highland lighthouse 
keeper. The tonic of the sea-winds gave him strength, 
and he found pleasure in conversations with his host, 
as he recalled in Chapter VIII of this volume. Few 
sentences of characterization are more crystalline than 
his tribute to his host ''in his solitary little ocean 
house. He was a man of singular patience and 
intelligence who, when our queries struck him, rang 
as clear as a bell in response." 

The first three excursions aggregated in time only 
three weeks, but much ground was covered by the 
pedestrians; "walked from Eastham to Province- 
town twice on the Atlantic side, and once on the Bay 
side also, excepting four or five miles, and crossed the 
Cape half a dozen times on my way; but having come 
so fresh to the sea, I have got but little salted." The 
humorous touch in that last clause suggests many 
similar passages in the book. As a revelation of 
Thoreau's peculiar saturnine humor, *'Cape Cod" 
ranks a close second to "Walden"; like the latter, it 
blends the qualities of a keen observer of humanity 
with the poetic meditations of a student of nature. 

As in the quotation given above, Thoreau often 
turned his wit upon himself and his companion on 
their tramps over hillsides and alongshore. Equipped 
for such an excursion, with a large umbrella, often 
opened and held close as he plodded against the wind 
and rain, clad in clothes more in accord with utility 
than fashion, with an old-fashioned knapsack and a 
folio for maps, notes, and specimens, Thoreau was 
often an object of curious regard to wayfarers or to 



viii INTR OD UCTION. 

the occupants of some humble house where he would 
seek lodging. He told with frankness, and an under- 
current of drollery, the general opinion, among the 
villagers in Canada and also on Cape Cod, that he 
and his companion were pedlers. 

A robbery of the bank at Provincetown occurred 
simultaneously with one of their foot-journeys across 
the Cape, and for a few hours they were watched and 
suspected as the possible culprits. With good nature 
Thoreau referred to the incident, "But the only bank 
that we pried into was the great Cape Cod sand bank, 
and we robbed it only of an old French crown piece, 
some shells and pebbles, and the materials for this 
story." In recalling the curiosity of the residents 
about these two men, who took such unaccountable 
long walks for pleasure, one is reminded of the sus- 
picions which fell upon Wordsworth and Coleridge, 
as they wandered about the Lake Country, when 
one of the peasantry expressed their doubts in the 
query, ''What man in his senses would take all that 
trouble to look at a parcel of water?" 

''Cape Cod," in book form, was prepared for pub- 
lication by Channing and was published in 1865, 
within the same year as "The Maine Woods." A 
large part of the material had been revised by its 
author; six of the ten chapters had appeared in maga- 
zine form before the book was issued. The first four 
chapters, placed in Putnam's Magazine through the 
kindness of Horace Greeley, surpass the latter half of 
the book in picturesque phrasing and sustained in- 
terest. The second chapter, "Stage-Coach Views," 
contains one of the most humorous and familiar pas- 
sages,beginning: "The coach was an exceedingly nar- 



INTRODUCTION, IX 

row one, but as there was a slight spherical excess 
over two on a seat, the driver waited until nine pas- 
sengers had got in, without taking the measure of any 
of them, and then shut the door after two or three 
ineffectual slams, as if the fault were all in the hinges 
or the latch, — while we timed our inspirations and 
expirations so as to assist him." 

Two other chapters, "The Wellfleet Oysterman " 
and "The Highland Light," were printed in the 
Atlantic Monthly in the autumn months of 1864, 
just previous to the publication of the book. During 
the fatal illness of Thoreau, two years before, he had 
selected and revised portions of these later chapters, with 
the hope that they might be published after his death. 
The description of "The Wellfleet Oysterman" and 
his family suggests Dickens in its grotesque characters. 

A few magazine readers of the earlier articles in 
Putnam's Magazine criticised Thoreau for seeming 
ridicule of the natives of the Cape towns; this un- 
warranted censure, joined to some financial misun- 
derstandings, caused him to bring his serial narrative 
to an abrupt close. Far from ridiculing or depre- 
ciating the people, whom he met on their own social 
level in their homes and along the beaches, he ex- 
pressed hearty admiration for them, "simple and 
downright" in character, "as men who had, at length, 
learned to live." In recalling local tales and tradi- 
tions he often chose those slightly absurd for special 
mention, as in this case: " I have heard of a minister, 
who had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridge- 
water for as long a time as he could tell a cod from a 
haddock. Generous as it seems, this condition would 
empty most country pulpits forthwith, for it is long 



X INTR OD UC TION. 

since the fishers of men were fishermen." To correct 
the misinterpretation of seeming levity on such 
themes, the chapter closed with a fine paragraph of 
appreciation: "Let no one think that I do not love 
the old ministers. They were, probably, the best 
men of their generation, and they deserve that their 
biographies should fill the pages of the town histories. 
If I could but hear the 'glad tidings' of which they 
tell, and which, perchance, they heard, I might write 
in a worthier strain than this." 

Perhaps it was unfortunate for Thoreau's reputa- 
tion among contemporaneous readers that the open- 
ing chapter of this narrative contained his reflections 
upon the shipwreck at Cohasset in. October, 1849, 
when one hundred and forty -five lives were lost. To 
us of the present, who are familiar with Thoreau's 
other writings and who can appreciate, even if we 
cannot fully analyze, his peculiar, complex qualities 
of mind and soul, his comments upon this scene of 
wreckage do not sound as strange and heartless as 
they must have seemed to earlier readers. The impas- 
sivity of his narrative impresses us to-day; he gave 
the details of the catastrophe with grim realism, 
untouched by notes of tragedy or pathos. The sight 
of the hundred corpses on the shore, and the scores 
of seekers for their dead, failed to move him deeply; 
his explanation was true for a nature such as his, "It 
is the individual and private that demands our sym- 
pathy." He formulated his conclusions regarding 
this incident and its teachings in accord with his 
philosophic attitude toward life and death, expressed 
in many passages in his journals: "The mariner who 
makes the safest port in Heaven, perchance, seems to 



INTR OD UC TION. xi 

his friends on earth to be shipwrecked, for they deem 
Boston Harbor the better place ; though perhaps invis- 
ible to them, a skilful pilot comes to meet him, and the 
fairest and balmiest gales blow off that coast, his good 
ship makes the land in halcyon days, and he kisses the 
shore in rapture there, while his old hulk tosses in the 
surf here." 

Alternating with these sketches of humanity, which 
give a vital tone of interest to this volum.e, are many 
passages of nature-study. He often reiterated his 
purpose, — to study the ocean and its effects upon the 
contiguous land. The lives of the fisherfolk, so unlike 
the inlanders in traits and standards of living, inter- 
ested him keenly; but such studies were incidental to 
the real purpose of the naturalist. In one sentence 
of seeming explanation he wrote, ^'I did not intend 
this for a sentimental journey"; in the same spirit 
of self-revelation he closed his comments upon the 
town of Hull, where he had found a small, hidden 
spring on the hillside, "Perhaps if I should go through 
Rome, it would be some spring on the Capitoline Hill 
I should remember longest." 

Wherever Thoreau travelled he carried with him 
the trained senses of the botanist and the ornitholo- 
gist; with careful study he examined the thorn-apple 
and bayberry bushes, the kelp-weed, the yellow soil 
and few dwarf trees, the piping plover and the gull. 
He collected shell formations and learned the varieties 
of clams. When he went to the Maine woods he 
delighted to make his way through the dense thickets 
where "wildness" was all about him. The same 
feature of landscape at the Cape awakened his en- 
thusiasm, he sought places where wildness had not 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

been spoiled by "embellishments." One of the best 
passages of descriptive form is at the beginning of 
Chapter IV, a picture of the beach as seen from the 
cliffs above, ''the sea exceedingly dark and stormy, 
the sky completely overcast," and the winds and rain 
keeping time with "the already agitated ocean." He 
confessed, "Every landscape which is dreary enough 
has a certain beauty to my eyes, and in this instance 
its permanent qualities were enhanced by the weather ; " 
and again, "My spirits rose in proportion to the out- 
ward dreariness." In recalling these scenes of gray- 
ness and wildness, which made an appeal to Thoreau's 
nature, we must not overlook a zestful description 
of autumn tints, — the red and brown berries, green 
bayberry and plum, and silver birch and aspen against 
a background of yellow sand-hills. 

Thoreau prepared himself with care for all his ex- 
cursions. He studied maps and gazetteers, read books 
on topography, geology, and history relating to the 
region, and often carried a few such reference books 
with him. In the story of his travels on Cape Cod, he 
cited many authorities, some familiar, more forgotten 
or unknown, yet containing bits of quaint tradition or 
strange facts. Josselyn's travels, Mourt's "Relation," 
Champlain's "Voyages," studies in geology and 
natural history by Hitchcock, Agassiz, Girard, — all 
such sources for research were freely utilized. Apt 
lines from Greek and Latin poets, and English clas- 
sics of many periods, were interspersed among prac- 
tical observations and surmises about the early 
Norse and French explorers along this coast 

Always interested in et>Tnology, he speculated as 
to the meanings of many local names. One of the 



INTR OD UC TION. xiii 

most often-quoted passages from this book is the 
vigorous metaphor chosen by Thoreau to describe the 
coastline: "Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm 
of Massachusetts: the shoulder is at Buzzard's Bay; 
the elbow, or crazy -bone, at Cape Mallebarre; the 
wrist at Truro; and the sandy fist at Provincetown, 
— behind which the State stands on her guard, with her 
back to the Green Mountains, and her feet planted on 
the floor of the ocean, like an athlete protecting her 
Bay, — boxing with northeast storms, and, ever and 
anon, heaving up her Atlantic adversary from the lap 
of earth, — ready to thrust forward her other fist, which 
keeps guard the while upon her breast at Cape Ann." 

During the last years of his life, Thoreau made 
several excursions for health and study, mountain - 
climbing in western Massachusetts and New Hamp- 
shire, trips into the wilds of Maine, and a journey 
with Horace Mann as far west as Minnesota. The 
excursions to Cape Cod were satisfying in memory, — 
"we went to see the Ocean and that is probably the 
best place of all our coast to go to." The aspects of 
nature which he studied, and the types of human 
life which he met upon these shores, left impres- 
sions not alone upon the mind, but also upon the imag- 
ination of Thoreau, as he acknowledged in poetic 
re very : "We often love to think now of the life of the 
men on beaches, at least in midsummer, when the 
weather is serene ; their sunny lives on the sand, amid 
the beach-grass and the bayberries, their companion 
a cow, their wealth a jag of driftwood or a few beach 
plums, and their music the surf and the peep of the 
beach bird." 

Annie Russell Marble. 

Worcester, Mass., 1907. 



CAPE COD. 



CAPE COD. 



THE SHIPWRECK. 

Wishing to get a better view than I had yet had of 
the ocean, which, we are told, covers more than two- 
thirds of the globe, but of which a man who Hves a few 
miles inland may never see any trace, more than of an- 
other world, I made a visit to Cape Cod in October, 
1849, another the succeeding June, and another to 
Truro in July, 1855; the first and last time with a 
single companion, the second time alone. I have 
spent, in all, about three weeks on the Cape ; walked 
from Eastham to Provincetown twice on the Atlantic 
side, and once on the Bay side also, excepting four or 
five miles, and crossed the Cape half a dozen times on 
my way; but having come so fresh to the sea, I have 
got but little salted. My readers must expect only 
so much saltness as the land breeze acquires from 
blowing over an arm of the sea, or is tasted on the win- 
dows and the bark of trees twenty miles inland, after 
September gales. I have been accustomed to make 
excursions to the ponds within ten miles of Concord, 
but latterly I have extended my excursions to the sea- 
shore. 

I did not see why I might not make a book on Cape 
Cod, as well as my neighbor on ''Human Culture." 
3 



4 CAPE COD. 

It is but another name for the same thing, and hardly 
a sandier phase of it. As for my title, I suppose that 
the word Cape is from the French cap ; which is from 
the Latin caput^ a head ; which is, perhaps, from the 
verb capcre, to take, — that being the part by which 
we take hold of a thing : — Take Time by the fore- 
lock. It is also the safest part to take a serpent by. 
And as for Cod, that was derived directly from that 
"great store of codfish" which Captain Bartholomew 
Gosnold caught there in 1602 ; which fish appears to 
have been so called from the Saxon word codde, '*a case 
in which seeds are lodged," either from the form of the 
fish, or the quantity of spawn it contains ; whence also, 
perhaps, codling {'' pomum coctiW ?) and coddle, — 
to cook green like peas. (V. Die.) 

Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of Massa- 
chusetts: the shoulder is at Buzzard's Bay; the elbow, 
or crazy -bone, at Cape Mallebarre; the wrist at 
Truro ; and the sandy fist at Provincetown, — behind 
which the State stands on her guard, with her back 
to the Green Mountains, and her feet planted on the 
floor of the ocean, Hke an athlete protecting her Bay, 
— boxing with northeast storms, and, ever and anon, 
heaving up her Atlantic adversary from the lap of 
earth, — ready to thrust forward her other fist, which 
keeps guard the while upon her breast at Cape Ann. 

On studying the map, I saw that there must be an 
uninterrupted beach on the east or outside of the fore- 
arm of the Cape, more than thirty miles from the 
general line of the coast, which would afford a good 
sea view, but that, on account of an opening in the 
beach, forming the entrance to Nauset Harbor, in 
Orleans, I must strike it in Eastham, if I approached 



THE SHIPWRECK. 5 

it by land, and probably I could walk thence straight 
to Race Point, about twenty-eight miles, and not meet 
with any obstruction. 

We left Concord, Massachusetts, on Tuesday, 
October 9th, 1849. On reaching Boston, we found 
that the Provincetown steamer, which should have 
got in the day before, had not yet arrived, on account of 
a violent storm; and, as we noticed in the streets a 
handbill headed, "Death ! one hundred and forty-five 
lives lost at Cohasset," we decided to go by way of 
Cohasset. We found many Irish in the cars, going 
to identify bodies and to sympathize with the sur- 
vivors, and also to attend the funeral which was to take 
place in the afternoon ; — and when we arrived at 
Cohasset, it appeared that nearly all the passengers 
were bound for the beach, which was about a mile dis- 
tant, and many other persons were flocking in from the 
neighboring country. There were several hundreds 
of them streaming off over Cohasset common in that 
direction, some on foot and some in wagons, — and 
among them were some sportsmen in their hunting- 
jackets, with their guns, and game-bags, and dogs. 
As we passed the graveyard we saw a large hole, like a 
cellar, freshly dug there, and, just before reaching the 
shore, by a pleasantly winding and rocky road, we met 
several hay-riggings and farm -wagons coming away 
toward the meeting-house, each loaded with three 
large, rough deal boxes. We did not need to ask 
what was in them. The owners of the wagons were 
made the undertakers. ^Many horses in carriages were 
fastened to the fences near the shore, and, for a mile 
or more, up and down, the beach was covered with 
people looking out for bodies, and examining the frag- 



6 CAPE COD. 

ments of the wreck. There was a small island called 
Brook Island, with a hut on it, lying just off the shore. 
This is said to be the rockiest shore in Massachusetts, 
from Nantasket to Scituate, — hard sienitic rocks, 
which the waves have laid bare, but have not been able 
to crumble. It has been the scene of many a shipwreck. 
The brig St. John, from Galway, Ireland, laden with 
emigrants, was wrecked on Sunday morning; it was 
now Tuesday morning, and the sea was still breaking 
violently on the rocks. There were eighteen or 
twenty of the same large boxes that I have mentioned, 
lying on a green hill-side, a few rods from the water, 
and surrounded by a crowd. The bodies which had 
been recovered, twenty-seven or eight in all, had been 
collected there. Some were rapidly nailing down the 
lids, others were carting the boxes away, and others 
were lifting the lids, which were yet loose, and peeping 
under the cloths, for each body, with such rags as still 
adhered to it, was covered loosely with a white sheet. 
I witnessed no signs of grief, but there was a sober 
despatch of business which was affecting. One man 
was seeking to identify a particular body, and one 
undertaker or carpenter was calling to another to 
know in what box a certain child was put. I saw many 
marble feet and matted heads as the cloths were raised, 
and one Hvid, swollen, and mangled body of a drowned 
girl, — who probably had intended to go out to ser- 
vice in some American family, — to which some rags 
still adhered, with a string, half concealed by the flesh, 
about its swollen neck ; the coiled-up wreck of a hu- 
man hulk, gashed by the rocks or fishes, so that the 
bone and muscle were exposed, but quite bloodless, — 
merely red and white, — with wide-open and staring 



THE SHIPWRECK. y 

eyes, yet lustreless, dead-lights; or like the cabin win- 
dows of a stranded vessel, filled with sand. Some- 
times there were two or more children, or a parent and 
child, in the same box, and on the Hd would perhaps 
be written with red chalk, "Bridget such-a-one, and 
sister's child." The surrounding sward was covered 
with bits of sails and clothing. I have since heard, 
from one who lives by this beach, that a woman who 
had come over before, but had left her infant behind 
for her sister to bring, came and looked into these boxes 
and saw in one, — probably the same whose super- 
scription I have quoted, — her child in her sister's 
arms, as if the sister had meant to be found thus ; and 
within three days after, the mother died from the effect 
of that sight. 

We turned from this and walked along the rocky 
shore. In the first cove were strewn what seemed the 
fragments of a vessel, in small pieces mixed with sand 
and sea -weed, and great quantities of feathers; but it 
looked so old and rusty, that I at first took it to be 
some old wreck which had lain there many years. I 
even thought of Captain Kidd, and that the feathers 
were those which sea -fowl had cast there ; and perhaps 
there might be some tradition about it in the neigh- 
borhood. I asked a sailor if that was the St. John. 
He said it was. I asked him where she struck. He 
pointed to a rock in front of us, a mile from the shore, 
called the Grampus Rock, and added : — 

"You can see a part of her now sticking up; it looks 
like a small boat." 

I saw it. It was thought to be held by the chain - 
cables and the anchors. I asked if the bodies which 
I saw were all that were drowned. 



8 CAPE COD, 

"Not a quarter of them," said he. 

"Where are the rest?" 

"Most of them right underneath that piece you see." 

It appeared to us that there was enough rubbish to 
make the wreck of a large vessel in this cove alone, 
and that it would take many days to cart it off. It was 
several feet deep, and here and there was a bonnet or 
a jacket on it. In the very midst of the crowd about 
this wreck, there were men with carts busily collecting 
the sea-weed which the storm had cast up, and con- 
veying it beyond the reach of the tide, though they 
were often obhged to separate fragments of clothing 
from it, and they might at any moment have found a 
human body under it. Drown who might, they did 
not forget that this weed was a valuable manure. 
This shipwreck had not produced a visible vibration 
in the fabric of society. 

About a mile south we could see, rising above the 
rocks, the masts of the British brig which the St. John 
had endeavored to follow, which had slipped her cables 
and, by good luck, run into the mouth of Cohasset 
Harbor. A Httle further along the shore we saw 
a man's clothes on a rock ; further, a woman's scarf, 
a gown, a straw bonnet, the brig's caboose, and one 
of her masts high and dry, broken into several pieces. 
In another rocky cove, several rods from the water, 
and behind rocks twenty feet high, lay a part of one 
side of the vessel, still hanging together. It was, 
perhaps, forty feet long, by fourteen wide. I was even 
more surprised at the power of the waves, exhibited 
on this shattered fragment, than I had been at the sight 
of the smaller fragments before. The largest timbers 
and iron braces were broken superfluously, and I saw 



THE SHIPWRECK. 9 

that no material could withstand the power of the 
waves; that iron must go to pieces in such a case, and 
an iron vessel would be cracked up hke an egg-shell 
on the rocks. Some of these timbers, however, were 
so rotten that I could almost thrust my umbrella 
through them. They told us that some were saved 
on this piece, and also showed where the sea had 
heaved it into this cove, which was now dry. When 
I saw where it had come in, and in what condition, I 
wondered that any had been saved on it. A Httle 
further on a crowd of men was collected around the 
mate of the St. John., who was telling his story. He 
was a slim-looking youth, who spoke of the captain as 
the master, and seemed a little excited. He was say- 
ing that when they jumped into the boat, she filled, 
and, the vessel lurching, the weight of the water in the 
boat caused the painter to break, and so they were 
separated. Whereat one man came away, saying: — 

"Well, I don't see but he tells a straight story 
enough. You see, the weight of the water in the boat 
broke the painter. A boat full of water is very heavy," 
— and so on, in a loud and impertinently earnest tone, 
as if he had a bet depending on it, but had no humane 
interest in the matter. 

Another, a large man, stood near by upon a rock, 
gazing into the sea, and chewing large quids of to- 
bacco, as if that habit were forever confirmed with him. 

"Come," says another to his companion, "let's be 
ofi'. We 've seen the whole of it. It's no use to stay 
to the funeral." 

Further, we saw one standing upon a rock, who, 
we were told, was one that was saved. He was a 
sober-looking man, dressed in a jacket and gray panta- 



10 CAPE COD. 

loons, with his hands in the pockets. I asked him a 
few questions, which he answered; but he seemed 
unwilHng to talk about it, and soon walked away. 
By his side stood one of the Hfe-boatmen, in an oil- 
cloth jacket, who told us how they went to the rehef 
of the British brig, thinking that the boat of the St. 
John, which they passed on the way, held all her crew, 
— for the waves prevented their seeing those who 
were on the vessel, though they might have saved 
some had they known there were any there. A 
little further was the flag of the St. John spread on 
a rock to dry, and held down by stones at the 
corners. This frail, but essential and significant 
portion of the vessel, which had so long been 
the sport of the winds, was sure to reach the 
shore. There were one or two houses visible from 
these rocks, in which were some of the survivors 
recovering from the shock which their bodies and 
minds had sustained. One was not expected to 
live. 

We kept on down the shore as far as a promontory 
called Whitehead, that we might see more of the 
Cohasset Rocks. In a Httle cove, within half a mile, 
there were an old man and his son collecting, with their 
team, the sea -weed which that fatal storm had cast up, 
as serenely employed as if there had never been a 
wreck in the world, though they were within sight of 
the Grampus Rock, on which the St. John had struck. 
The old man had heard that there was a wreck, and 
knew most of the particulars, but he said that he had 
not been up there since it happened. It was the 
wrecked weed that concerned him most, rock -weed, 
kelp, and sea -weed, as he named them, which he carted 



THE SHIPWRECK. II 

to his barn-yard; and those bodies were to him but 
other weeds which the tide cast up, but which were of 
no use to him. We afterwards came to the Ufe-boat 
in its harbor, waiting for another emergency, — and 
in the afternoon we saw the funeral procession at a 
distance, at the head of which walked the captain with 
the other survivors. 

On the whole, it was not so impressive a scene as I 
might have expected. If I had found one body cast 
upon the beach in some lonely place, it would have 
affected me more. I sympathized rather with the 
winds and waves, as if to toss and mangle these poor 
human bodies was the order of the day. If this was 
the law of Nature, why waste any time in awe or pity? 
If the last day were come, we should not think so 
much about the separation of friends or the bhghted 
prospects of individuals. I saw that corpses might be 
multipHed, as on the field of battle, till they no longer 
affected us in any degree, as exceptions to the common 
lot of humanity. Take all the graveyards together, 
they are always the majority. It is the individual and 
private that demands our sympathy. A man can 
attend but one funeral in the course of his Ufe, can 
behold but one corpse. Yet I saw that the inhabitants 
of the shore would be not a Httle affected by this event. 
They would watch there many days and nights for the 
sea to give up its dead, and their imaginations and 
sympathies would supply the place of mourners far 
away, who as yet knew not of the wreck. Many days 
after this, something white was seen floating on the 
water by one who was sauntering on the beach. It 
was approached in a boat, and found to be the body of 
a woman, which had risen in an upright position, 



12 CAPE COD. 

whose white cap was blown back with the wind. I 
saw that the beauty of the shore itself was wrecked for 
many a lonely walker there, until he could perceive, 
at last, how its beauty was enhanced by wrecks Uke 
this, and it acquired thus a rarer and sublimer beauty 
still. 

Why care for these dead bodies ? They really have 
no friends but the worms or fishes. Their owners 
were coming to the New World, as Columbus and the 
Pilgrims did, — they were within a mile of its shores ; 
but, before they could reach it, they emigrated to a 
newer world than ever Columbus dreamed of, yet 
one of whose existence we believe that there is far 
more universal and convincing evidence — though it 
has not yet been discovered by science — than 
Columbus had of this ; not merely mariners' tales and 
some paltry drift-wood and sea-weed, but a continual 
drift and instinct to all our shores. I saw their 
empty hulks that came to land; but they themselves, 
meanwhile, were cast upon some shore yet further 
west, toward which we are all tending, and which we 
shall reach at last, it may be through storm and 
darkness, as they did. No doubt, we have reason to 
thank God that they have not been "shipwrecked into 
life again." The mariner who makes the safest port 
in Heaven, perchance, seems to his friends on earth to 
be shipwrecked, for they deem Boston Harbor the 
better place; though perhaps invisible to them, a 
skilful pilot comes to meet him, and the fairest and 
balmiest gales blow off that coast, his good ship makes 
the land in halcyon days, and he kisses the shore in 
rapture there, while his old hulk tosses in the surf here. 
It is hard to part with one's body, but, no doubt, it is 



THE SFIIP WRECK'. 



13 



easy enough to do without it when once it is gone. All 
their plans and hopes burst like a bubble! Infants 
by the score dashed on the rocks by the enraged Atlan- 
tic Ocean ! No, no ! If the St. John did not make 
her port here, she has been telegraphed there. The 
strongest wind cannot stagger a Spirit ; it is a Spirit's 
breath. A just man's purpose cannot be spHt on any 
Grampus or material rock, but itself will spHt rocks 
till it succeeds. 

The verses addressed to Columbus, dying, may, 
with slight alterations, be applied to the passengers 
of the St. John: — 



"Soon with them will all be over, 
Soon the voyage will be begun 
That shall bear them to discover, 
Far away, a land unknown. 

"Land that each, alone, must visit, 
But no tidings bring to men; 
For no sailor, once departed, 
Ever hath returned again. 

"No carved wood, no broken branches, 
Ever drift from that far wild; 
He who on that ocean launches 
Meets no corse of angel child. 

"Undismayed, my noble sailors, 
Spread, then spread your canvas out; 
Spirits ! on a sea of ether 
Soon shall ye serenely float ! 

'Where the deep no plummet soundeth, 
Fear no hidden breakers there. 
And the fanning wing of angels 
Shall your bark right onward bear. 



14 CAPE COD. 

"Quit, now, full of heart and comfort. 
These rude shores, they are of earth; 
Where the rosy clouds are parting, 
There the blessed isles loom forth." 

One summer day, since this, I came this way, on 
foot, along the shore from Boston. It was so warm, 
that some horses had cHmbed to the very top of the 
ramparts of the old fort at Hull, where there was hardly 
room to turn round, for the sake of the breeze. The 
Datura stramonium, or thorn-apple, was in full bloom 
along the beach ; and, at sight of this cosmopoHte, — 
this Captain Cook among plants, — carried in ballast 
all over the world, I felt as if I were on the highway of 
nations. Say, rather, this Viking, king of the Bays, 
for it is not an innocent plant ; it suggests not merely 
commerce, but its attendant vices, as if its fibres were 
the stuff of which pirates spin their yarns. I heard 
the voices of men shouting aboard a vessel, half a mile 
from the shore, which sounded as if they were in a barn 
in the country, they being between the sails. It was 
a purely rural sound. As I looked over the water, I 
saw the isles rapidly wasting away, the sea nibbUng 
voraciously at the continent, the springing arch of a hill 
suddenly interrupted, as at Point Alderton, — what 
botanists might call premorse, — showing, by its 
curve against the sky, how much space it must have 
occupied, where now was water only. On the other 
hand, these wrecks of isles were being fancifully 
arranged into new shores, as at Hog Island, inside of 
Hull, where everything seemed to be gently lapsing into 
futurity. This isle had got the very form of a ripple, 
— and I thought that the inhabitants should bear a 
ripple for device on their shields, a wave passing over 



THE SHIPWRECK. 15 

them, with the datura, which is said to produce mental 
alienation of long duration without affecting the bodily 
health/ springing from its edge. The most interesting 
thing which I heard of, in this township of Hull, was 
an unfailing spring, whose locaUty was pointed out to 
me, on the side of a distant hill, as I was panting along 
the shore, though I did not visit it. Perhaps, if I 
should go through Rome, it would be some spring on 
the CapitoHne Hill I should rem.ember the longest. 
It is true, I was somewhat interested in the well at the 
old French fort, which was said to be ninety feet deep, 
with a cannon at the bottom of it. On Nantasket 
beach I counted a dozen chaises from the public- 
house. From time to time the riders turned their 
horses toward the sea, standing in the water for the 
coolness, — and I saw the value of beaches to cities 
for the sea breeze and the bath. 

* The Jamestown weed (or thorn-apple). " This, being an 
early plant, was gathered very young for a boiled salad, by 
some of the soldiers sent thither [i.e. to Virginia] to quell the 
rebellion of Bacon; and some of them ate plentifully of it, 
the effect of which was a very pleasant comedy, for they 
turned natural fools upon it for several days : one would blow 
up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with 
much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a 
corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows at them; 
a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer 
in their faces, with a countenance more antic than any in a 
Dutch droll. In this frantic condition they were confined, 
lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves, — though 
it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence 
and good nature. Indeed, they were not very cleanly. A 
thousand such simple tricks they played, and after eleven 
days returned to themselves again, not remembering any- 
thing that had passed." — Beverly's History of Virginia, 
p. 120, 



1 6 CAPE COD. 

At Jerusalem village the inhabitants were collecting 
in haste, before a thunder-shower now approaching, 
the Irish moss which they had spread to dry. The 
shower passed on one side, and gave me a few drops 
only, which did not cool the air. I merely felt a puff 
upon my cheek, though, within sight, a vessel was 
capsized in the bay, and several others dragged their 
anchors, and Were near going ashore. The sea-bath- 
ing at Cohasset Rocks was perfect. The water was 
purer and more transparent than any I had ever seen. 
There was not a particle of mud or slime about it. 
The bottom being sandy, I could see the sea-perch 
swimming about. The smooth and fantastically 
worn rocks, and the perfectly clean and tress-like 
rock -weeds falling over you, and attached so firmly 
to the rocks that you could pull yourself up by them, 
greatly enhanced the luxury of the bath. The stripe 
of barnacles just above the weeds reminded me of 
some vegetable growth, — the buds, and petals, and 
seed-vessels of flowers. They lay along the seams of 
the rock Hke buttons on a waistcoat. It was one of the 
hottest days in the year, yet I found the water so icy 
cold that I could swim but a stroke or two, and thought 
that, in case of shipwreck, there would be more danger 
of being chilled to death than simply drowned. One 
immersion was enough to make you forget the dog- 
days utterly. Though you were sweltering before, it 
will take you half an hour now to remember that it 
was ever warm. There were the tawny rocks, like 
lions couchant, defying the ocean, whose waves in- 
cessantly dashed against and scoured them with vast 
quantities of gravel. The water held in their httle 
hollows, on the receding of the tide, was so crystalline 



THE SHIPWRECK. 1 7 

that I could not believe it salt, but wished to drink it; 
and higher up were basins of fresh water left by the 
rain, — all which, being also of different depths and 
temperature, were convenient for different kinds of 
baths. Also, the larger hollows in the smoothed rocks 
formed the most convenient of seats and dressing- 
rooms. In these respects it was the most perfect sea- 
shore that I had seen. 

I saw in Cohasset, separated from the sea only by a 
narrow beach, a handsome but shallow lake of some 
four hundred acres, which, I was told, the sea had 
tossed over the beach in a great storm in the spring, 
and, after thealewives had passed into it, it had stopped 
up its outlet, and now the alewives were dying by 
thousands, and the inhabitants were apprehending a 
pestilence as the water evaporated. It had five rocky 
islets in it. 

This rocky shore is called Pleasant Cove, on some 
maps; on the map of Cohasset, that name appears to 
be confined to the particular cove where I saw the 
wreck of the Si. John. The ocean did not look, now, 
as if any were ever shipwrecked in it ; it was not grand 
and sublime, but beautiful as a lake. Not a vestige 
of a wreck was visible, nor could I believe that the 
bones of many a shipwrecked man were buried in that 
pure sand. But to go on with our first excursion. 



II. 

STAGE-COACH VIEWS. 

After spending the night in Bridgewater, and pick- 
ing up a few arrow-heads there in the morning, we took 
the cars for Sandwich, where we arrived before noon. 
This was the terminus of the "Cape Cod Railroad," 
though it is but the beginning of the Cape. As it 
rained hard, with driving mists, and there was no sign 
of its holding up, we here took that abnost obsolete 
conveyance, the stage, for "as far as it went that day," 
as we told the driver. We had forgotten how far a 
stage could go in a day, but we were told that the Cape 
roads were very "heavy," though they added that, 
being of sand, the rain would improve them. This 
coach was an exceedingly narrow one, but as there was 
a slight spherical excess over two on a seat, the driver 
waited till nine passengers had got in, without taking 
the measure of any of them, and then shut the door 
after two or three ineflfectual slams, as if the fault were 
all in the hinges or the latch, — while we timed our 
inspirations and expirations so as to assist him. 

We were now fairly on the Cape, which extends from 

Sandwich eastward thirty-five miles, and thence north 

and northwest thirty more, in all sixty -live, and has an 

average breadth of about five miles. In the interior it 

i8 



STAGE-COACH VIEWS. 1 9 

rises to the height of two hundred, and sometimes 
perhaps three hundred feet above the level of the sea. 
According to Hitchcock, the geologist of the State, it is 
composed ahnost entirely of sand, even to the depth of 
three hundred feet in some places, though there is 
probably a concealed core of rock a Httle beneath the 
surface, and it is of diluvian origin, excepting a small 
portion at the extremity and elsewhere along the 
shores, which is alluvial. For the first half of the 
Cape large blocks of stone are found, here and there, 
mixed with the sand, but for the last thirty miles 
boulders, or even gravel, are rarely met with. Hitch- 
cock conjectures that the ocean has, in course of 
time, eaten out Boston Harbor and other bays in the 
mainland, and that the minute fragments have been 
deposited by the currents at a distance from the shore, 
and formed this sand-bank. Above the sand, if the 
surface is subjected to agricultural tests, there is 
found to be a thin layer of soil gradually diminishing 
from Barnstable to Truro, where it ceases ; but there 
are many holes and rents in this weather-beaten gar- 
ment not Hkely to be stitched in time, which reveal the 
naked flesh of the Cape, and its extremity is completely 
bare. 

I at once got out my book, the eighth volume of the 
Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
printed in 1802, which contains some short notices 
of the Cape towns, and began to read up to where 
I was, for in the cars I could not read as fast as I 
travelled. To those who came from the side of Plym- 
outh, it said: ''After riding through a body of woods, 
twelve miles in extent, interspersed with but few houses, 
the settlement of Sandwich appears, with a more 



20 CAPE COD, 

agreeable effect, to the eye of the traveller." Another 
writer speaks of this as a beautiful village. But I 
think that our villages will bear to be contrasted only 
with one another, not with Nature. I have no great 
respect for the writer's taste, who talks easily about 
beautiful villages, embellished, perchance, with a 
''fulling-mill," "a handsome academy," or meeting- 
house, and "a number of shops for the different me- 
chanic arts" ; where the green and white houses of the 
gentry, drawn up in rows, front on a street of which it 
would be difficult to tell whether it is most like a desert 
or a long stable-yard. Such spots can be beautiful 
only to the weary traveller, or the returning native, — 
or, perchance, the repentant misanthrope; not to 
him who, with unprejudiced senses, has just come out 
of the woods, and approaches one of them, by a bare 
road, through a succession of straggling homesteads 
where he cannot tell which is the alms-house. How- 
ever, as for Sandwich, I cannot speak particularly. 
Ours was but half a Sandwich at most, and that must 
have fallen on the buttered side some time. I only 
saw that it was a closely-built town for a small one, 
with glass-works to improve its sand, and narrow streets 
in which we turned round and round till we could not 
tell which way we were going, and the rain came in, 
first on this side, and then on that, and I saw that they 
in the houses were more comfortable than we in the 
coach. My book also said of this town, ' ' The inhabit- 
ants, in general, are substantial livers," — that is, 
I suppose, they do not Hve Hke philosophers; but, as 
the stage did not stop long enough for us to dine, we 
had no opportunity to test the truth of this statement. 
It may have referred, however, to the quantity "of 



STAGE-COACH VIEWS. 21 

oil they would yield." It further said, "The inhabit- 
ants of Sandwich generally manifest a fond and steady 
adherence to the manners, employments, and modes of 
living which characterized their fathers"; which 
made me think that they were, after all, very much like 
all the rest of the world ; — and it added that this was 
"a resemblance, which, at this day, will constitute no 
impeachment of either their virtue or taste"; which 
remark proves to me that the writer was one with the 
rest of them. No people ever lived by cursing their 
fathers, however great a curse their fathers might have 
been to them. But it must be confessed that ours was 
old authority, and probably they have changed all 
that now. 

Our route was along the Bay side, through Barn- 
stable, Yarmouth, Dennis, and Brewster, to Orleans, 
with a range of low hills on our right, running down 
the Cape. The weather was not favorable for wayside 
views, but we made the most of such glimpses of 
land and water as we could get through the rain. The 
country was, for the most part, bare, or with only a 
little scrubby wood left on the hills. We noticed in 
Yarmouth — and, if I do not mistake, in Dennis — 
large tracts where pitch-pines were planted four 
or five years before. They were in rows, as they ap- 
peared when we were abreast of them, and, excepting 
that there were extensive vacant spaces, seemed to be 
doing remarkably well. This, we were told, was the 
only use to which such tracts could be profitably put. 
Every higher eminence had a pole set up on it, with an 
old storm -coat or sail tied to it, for a signal, that those 
on the south side of the Cape, for instance, might 
know when the Boston packets had arrived on the 



22 CAPE COD. 

north. It appeared as if this use must absorb the 
greater part of the old clothes of the Cape, leaving but 
few rags for the peddlers. The wind-mills on the 
hills, — large weather-stained octagonal structures, — 
and the salt-works scattered all along the shore, with 
their long rows of vats resting on piles driven into the 
marsh, their low, turtle-like roofs, and their sHghter 
wind-mills, were novel and interesting objects to an 
inlander. The sand by the roadside was partially 
covered with bunches of a moss-like plant, Hudsonia 
•totnentosa, which a woman in the stage told us was 
called "poverty-grass," because it grew where nothing 
else would. 

I was struck by the pleasant equality which reigned 
among the stage company, and their broad and invul- 
nerable good humor. They were what is called free 
and easy, and met one another to advantage, as men 
who had, at length, learned how to live. They ap- 
peared to know each other when they were strangers, 
they were so simple and downright. They were well 
met, in an unusual sense, that is, they met as well as 
they could meet, and did not seem to be troubled with 
any impediment. They were not afraid nor ashamed 
of one another, but were contented to make just such 
a company as the ingredients allowed. It was evi- 
dent that the same foolish respect was not here claimed, 
for mere wealth and station, that is in many parts of 
New England; yet some of them were the "first peo- 
ple," as they are called, of the various towns through 
which we passed. Retired sea-captains, in easy 
circumstances, who talked of farming as sea-captains 
are wont; an erect, respectable, and trustworthy- 
looking man, in his wrapper, some of the salt of the 



STAGE-COACH VIEWS. 23 

earth, who had formerly been the salt of the sea; or 
a more courtly gentleman, who, perchance, had been 
a representative to the General Court in his day ; or a 
broad, red-faced Cape Cod man, who had seen too 
many storms to be easily irritated; or a fisherman's 
wife, who had been waiting a week for a coaster to 
leave Boston, and had at length come by the cars. 

A strict regard for truth obliges us to say, that the 
few women whom we saw that day looked exceedingly 
pinched up. They had prominent chins and noses, 
having lost all their teeth, and a sharp W would repre- 
sent their profile. They were not so well preserved as 
their husbands ; or perchance they were well preserved 
as dried specimens. (Their husbands, however, were 
pickled.) But we respect them not the less for all 
that; our own dental system is far from perfect. 

Still we kept on in the rain, or, if we stopped, it was 
commonly at a post-office, and we thought that writing 
letters, and sorting them against our arrival, must be 
the principal employment of the inhabitants of the 
Cape, this rainy day. The Post-office appeared a 
singularly domestic institution here. Ever and anon 
the stage stopped before some low shop or dwelling, 
and a wheelwright or shoemaker appeared in his shirt 
sleeves and leather apron, with spectacles newly 
donned, holding up Uncle Sam's bag, as if it were a 
slice of home-made cake, for the travellers, while he 
retailed some piece of gossip to the driver, really as 
indifferent to the presence of the fornier as if they were 
so much baggage. In one instance, we understood that 
a woman was the post-mistress, and they said that 
she made the best one on the road; but we suspected 
that the letters must be subjected to a very close 



24 CAPE COD. 

scrutiny there. While we were stopping, for this 
purpose, at Dennis, we ventured to put our heads out 
of the windows, to see where we were going, and saw 
rising before us, through the mist, singular barren hills, 
all stricken with poverty-grass, looming up as if they 
were in the horizon, though they were close to us, and 
we seemed to have got to the end of the land on that 
side, notwithstanding that the horses were still headed 
that way. Indeed, that part of Dennis which we saw 
was an exceedingly barren and desolate country, of a 
character which I can find no name for; such a sur- 
face, perhaps, as the bottom of the sea made dry land 
day before yesterday. It was covered with poverty- 
grass, and there was hardly a tree in sight, but here and 
there a little weather-stained, one-storied house, with 
a red roof, — for often the roof was painted, though 
the rest of the house was not, — standing bleak and 
cheerless, yet with a broad foundation to the land, where 
the comfort must have been all inside. Yet we read in 
the Gazetteer — for we carried that too with us — that, 
in 1837, one hundred and fifty masters of vessels, be- 
longing to this town, sailed from the various ports of 
the Union. There must be many more houses in the 
south part of the town, else we cannot imagine where 
they all lodge when they are at home, if ever they are 
there; but the truth is, their houses are floating ones, 
and their home is on the ocean. There were almost no 
trees at all in this part of Dennis, nor could I learn 
that they talked of setting out any. It is true, there 
was a meeting-house, set round with Lombardy pop- 
lars, in a hollow square, the rows fully as straight as 
the studs of a building, and the corners as square; 
but, if I do not mistake, every one of them was dead. 



STAGE-COACH VIEWS. 25 

I could not help thinking that they needed a revival 
here. Our book said that, in 1795, there was erected 
in Dennis **an elegant meeting-house, with a steeple." 
Perhaps this was the one; though whether it had a 
steeple, or had died down so far from sympathy with 
the poplars, I do not remember. Another meeting- 
house in this town was described as a ''neat building" ; 
but of the meeting-house in Chatham, a neighboring 
town, for there was then but one, nothing is said, ex- 
cept that it "is in good repair," — both which remarks, 
I trust, may be understood as applying to the churches 
spiritual as well as material. However, "elegant 
meeting-houses," from that Trinity one on Broadway, 
to this at Nobscusset, in my estimation, belong to the 
same category with "beautiful villages." I was never 
in season to see one. Handsome is that handsome 
does. What they did for shade here, in warm weather, 
we did not know, though we read that "fogs are more 
frequent in Chatham than in any other part of the 
country; and they serve in summer, instead of trees, 
to shelter the houses against the heat of the sun. To 
those who delight in extensive vision," — is it to be 
inferred that the inhabitants of Chatham do not? — 
"they are unpleasant, but they are not found to be 
unhealthful." Probably, also, the unobstructed sea 
breeze answers the purpose of a fan. The historian of 
Chatham says further, that "in many families there is 
no difference between the breakfast and supper; 
cheese, cakes, and pies being as common at the one 
as at the other." But that leaves us still uncertain 
whether they were really common at either. 

The road, which was quite hilly, here ran near the 
Bay-shore, having the Bay on one side, and "the 



26 CAPE COD. 

rough hill of Scargo," said to be the highest land on the 
Cape, on the other. Of the wide prospect of the Bay 
afforded by the summit of this hill, our guide says: 
"The view has not much of the beautiful in it, but 
it communicates a strong emotion of the sublime." 
That is the kind of communication which we love to 
have made to us. We passed through the village of 
Suet, in Dennis, on Suet and Quivet Necks, of which it 
is said, ''when compared with Nobscusset," — we 
had a misty recollection of having passed through, or 
near to, the latter, — "it may be denominated a pleas- 
ant village; but, in comparison with the village of 
Sandwich, there is Httle or no beauty in it." How- 
ever, we Hked Dennis well, better than any town we 
had seen on the Cape, it was so novel, and, in that 
stormy day, so sublimely dreary. 

Captain John Sears, of Suet, was the first person in 
this country who obtained pure marine salt by solar 
evaporation alone ; though it had long been made in 
a similar way on the coast of France, and elsewhere. 
This was in the year 1776, at which time, on account 
of the war, salt was scarce and dear. The Historical 
Collections contain an interesting account of his ex- 
periments, which we read when we first saw the roofs 
of the salt-works. Barnstable county is the most fa- 
vorable locality for these works on our northern coast, 
— there is so Httle fresh water here emptying into 
ocean. Quite recently there were about two millions 
of dollars invested in this business here. But now the 
Cape is unable to compete with the importers of salt 
and the manufacturers of it at the West, and, accord- 
ingly, her salt-works are fast going to decay. From 
making salt, they turn to fishing more than ever. 



STAGE-COACH VIEWS. 2/ 

The Gazetteer will uniformly tell you, under the head 
of each town, how many go a-fishing, and the value of 
the fish and oil taken, how much salt is made and 
used, how many are engaged in the coasting trade, how 
many in manufacturing palm -leaf hats, leather, boots, 
shoes, and tinware, and then it has done, and leaves 
you to imagine the more truly domestic manufactures 
which are nearly the same all the world over. 

Late in the afternoon, we rode through Brewster, 
so named after Elder Brewster, for fear he would be 
forgotten else. Who has not heard of Elder Brewster ? 
Who knows who he was? This appeared to be the 
modern-built town of the Cape, the favorite residence 
of retired sea-captains. It is said that ''there are 
more masters and mates of vessels which sail on 
foreign voyages belonging to this place than to any 
other town in the country." There were many of the 
modern American houses here, such as they turn out at 
Cambridgeport, standing on the sand ; you could almost 
swear that they had been floated down Charles River, 
and drifted across the bay. I call them American, 
because they are paid for by Americans, and ''put up" 
by American carpenters; but they are little removed 
from lumber; only Eastern stuff disguised with white 
paint, the least interesting kind of drift-wood to me. 
Perhaps we have reason to be proud of our naval 
architecture, and need not go to the Greeks, or the 
Goths, or the Italians, for the models of our vessels. 
Sea-captains do not employ a Cambridgeport carpenter 
to build their floating houses, and for their houses on 
shore, if they must copy any, it would be more agree- 
able to the imagination to see one of their vessels 
turned bottom upward, in the Numidian fashion. 



28 CAPE COD. 

We read that, ''at certain seasons, the reflection of the 
siin upon the windows of the houses in Wellfleet and 
Truro (across the inner side of the elbow of the Cape) 
is discernible with the naked eye, at a distance of 
eighteen miles and upward, on the county road." 
This we were pleased to imagine, as we had not seen the 
sun for twenty-four hours. 

The same author (the Rev. John Simpkins) said of 
the inhabitants, a good while ago : ''No persons appear 
to have a greater relish for the social circle and domestic 
pleasures. They are not in the habit of frequenting 
taverns, unless on public occasions. I know not of a 
proper idler or tavern -haunter in the place." This is 
more than can be said of my townsmen. 

At length, we stopped for the night at Higgins's 
tavern, in Orleans, feehng very much as if we were 
on a sand-bar in the ocean, and not knowing whether 
we should see land or water ahead when the mist 
cleared away. We here overtook two Italian boys, 
who had waded thus far down the Cape through the 
sand, with their organs on their backs, and were going 
on to Provincetown. What a hard lot, we thought, if 
the Provincetown people should shut their doors 
against them ! Whose yard would they go to next ? 
Yet we concluded that they had chosen wisely to 
come here, where other music than that of the surf 
must be rare. Thus the great civilizer sends out its 
emissaries, sooner or later, to every sandy cape and 
light-house of the New World which the census-taker 
visits, and summons the savage there to surrender. 



III. 

THE PLAINS OF NAUSET. 

The next morning, Thursday, October nth, it 
rained, as hard as ever; but we were determined to 
proceed on foot, nevertheless. We first made some 
inquiries with regard to the practicability of walking 
up the shore on the Atlantic side to Provincetown, 
whether we should meet with any creeks or marshes 
to trouble us. Higgins said that there was no obstruc- 
tion, and that it was not much farther than by the 
road, but he thought that we should find it very 
'heavy" walking in the sand; it was bad enough in 
the road, a horse would sink in up to the fetlocks there. 
But there was one man at the tavern who had walked it, 
and he said that we could go very well, though it was 
sometimes inconvenient and even dangerous walking 
under the bank, when there was a great tide, with an 
easterly wind, which caused the sand to cave. For the 
first four or five miles we followed the road, which here 
turns to the north on the elbow, — the narrowest part 
of the Cape, — that we might clear an inlet from the 
ocean, a part of Nauset Harbor, in Orleans, on our 
right. We found the travelling good enough for 
walkers on the sides of the roads, though it was 
"heavy" for horses in the middle. We walked with 
29 



30 CAPE COD. 

our umbrellas behind us, since it blowed hard as 
well as rained, with driving mists, as the day before 
and the wind helped us over the sand at a rapid rate. 
Everything indicated that we had reached a strange 
shore. The road was a mere lane, winding over bare 
swells of bleak and barren -looking land. The houses 
were few and far between, besides being small and 
rusty, though they appeared to be kept in good repair, 
and their door-yards, which were the unfenced Cape, 
were tidy; or, rather, they looked as if the ground 
around them was blown clean by the wind. Perhaps 
the scarcity of wood here, and the consequent absence 
of the wood-pile and other wooden traps, had some- 
thing to do with this appearance. They seemed, Hke 
mariners ashore, to have sat right down to enjoy the 
firmness of the land, without studying their postures 
or habiliments. To them it was merely terra f,rma 
and cognita, not yet jertilis and jucunda. Every 
landscape which is dreary enough has a certain beauty 
to my eyes, and in this instance its permanent qualities 
were enhanced by the weather. Everything told of 
the sea, even when we did not see its waste or hear its 
roar. For birds there were gulls, and for carts in the 
fields, boats turned bottom upward against the 
houses, and sometimes the rib of a whale was woven 
into the fence by the road-side. The trees were, if 
possible, rarer than the houses, excepting apple-trees, 
of which there were a few small orchards in the hol- 
lows. These were either narrow and high, with 
flat tops, having lost their side branches, like huge 
plum -bushes growing in exposed situations, or else 
dwarfed and branching immediately at the ground, 
like quince-bushes. They suggested that, under like 



THE PLAINS OF N A USE T. 3 1 

circumstances, all trees would at last acquire like 
habits of growth. I afterward saw on the Cape many 
full-grown apple-trees not higher than a man's head ; 
one whole orchard, indeed, where all the fruit could 
have been gathered by a man standing on the ground ; 
but you could hardly creep beneath the trees. Some, 
which the owners told me were twenty years old, were 
only three and a half feet high, spreading at six inches 
from the ground five feet each way, and being withal 
surrounded with boxes of tar to catch the canker- 
worms, they looked Uke plants in flower-pots, and as 
if they might be taken into the house in the winter. 
In another place, I saw some not much larger than 
currant-bushes; yet the owner told me that they had 
borne a barrel and a half of apples that fall. If they 
had been placed close together, I could have cleared 
them all at a jump. I measured some near the High- 
land Light in Truro, which had been taken from the 
shrubby woods thereabouts when young, and grafted. 
One, which had been set ten years, was on an average 
eighteen inches high, and spread nine feet with a 
flat top. It had borne one bushel of apples two years 
before. Another, probably twenty years old from the 
seed, was five feet high, and spread eighteen feet, 
branching, as usual, at the ground, so that you could not 
creep under it. This bore a barrel of apples two years 
before. The owner of these trees invariably used the 
personal pronoun in speaking of them; as, **I got 
him out of the woods, but he doesn't bear." The 
largest that I saw in that neighborhood was nine feet 
high to the topmost leaf, and spread thirty-three feet, 
branching at the ground five ways. 

In one yard I observed a single, very healthy-look- 



32 CAPE COD, 

ing tree, while all the rest were dead or dying. The 
occupant said that his father had manured all but that 
one with blackfish. 

This habit of growth should, no doubt, be encour- 
aged; and they should not be trimmed up, as some 
travelHng practitioners have advised. In 1802 there 
was not a single fruit-tree in Chatham, the next town 
to Orleans, on the south; and the old account of 
Orleans says: "Fruit-trees cannot be made to grow 
within a mile of the ocean. Even those which are 
placed at a greater distance are injured by the east 
winds; and, after violent storms in the spring, a 
saltish taste is perceptible on their bark." We 
noticed that they were often covered with a yellow 
lichen like rust, the Parmelia parietina. 

The most foreign and picturesque structures on the 
Cape, to an inlander, not excepting the salt-works, are 
the wind-mills, — gray-looking octagonal towers, with 
long timbers slanting to the ground in the rear, and 
there resting on a cart-wheel, by which their fans are 
turned round to face the wind. These appeared also 
to serve in some measure for props against its force. 
A great circular rut was worn around the building by 
the wheel. The neighbors who assemble to turn the 
mill to the wind are Hkely to know which way it 
blows, without a weathercock. They looked loose 
and slightly locomotive, like huge wounded birds, 
trailing a wing or a leg, and reminded one of pictures 
of the Netherlands. Being on elevated ground, and 
high in themselves, they serve as landmarks, — for 
there are no tall trees, or other objects commonly, 
which can be seen at a distance in the horizon ; 
though the outline of the land itself is so firm and 



THE PLAINS OF NAUSET. 33 

distinct, that an insignificant cone, or even precipice of 
sand, is visible at a great distance from over the sea. 
Sailors making the land commonly steer either by the 
wind-mills or the meeting-houses. In the country, 
we are obliged to steer by the meeting-houses alone. 
Yet the meeting-house is a kind of wind-mill, which 
runs one day in seven, turned either by the winds of 
doctrine or public opinion, or more rarely by the winds 
of Heaven, where another sort of grist is ground, of 
which, if it be not all bran or musty, if it be not 
plaster, we trust to make bread of life. 

There were, here and there, heaps of shells in the 
fields, where clams had been opened for bait; for 
Orleans is famous for its shell-fish, especially clams, or, 
as our author says, "to speak more properly, worms." 
The shores are more fertile than the dry land. The 
inhabitants measure their crops, not only by bushels 
of com, but by barrels of clams. A thousand barrels 
of clam -bait are counted as equal in value to six or 
eight thousand bushels of Indian corn, and once they 
were procured without more labor or expense, and 
the supply was thought to be inexhaustible. ''For," 
runs the history, "after a portion of the shore has been 
dug over, and almost all the clams taken up, at the 
end of two years, it is said, they are as plenty there as 
ever. It is even affirmed by many persons, that it is 
as necessary to stir the clam ground frequently as it 
is to hoe a field of potatoes ; because, if this labor is 
omitted, the clams will be crowded too closely together, 
and will be prevented from increasing in size." But 
we were told that the small clam, My a arenaria, was 
not so plenty here as formerly. Probably the clam- 
ground has been stirred too frequently, after all. 



34 CAPE COD. 

Nevertheless, one man, who complained that they fed 
pigs with them and so made them scarce, told me that 
he dug and opened one hundred and twenty-six 
dollars' worth in one winter, in Truro. 

We crossed a brook, not more than fourteen rods 
long, between Orleans and Eastham, called Jere- 
miah's Gutter. The Atlantic is said sometimes to 
meet the Bay here, and isolate the northern part of the 
Cape. The streams of the Cape are necessarily 
formed on a minute scale, since there is no room for 
them to run, without tumbling immediately into the 
sea ; and beside, we found it difficult to run ourselves 
in that sand, when there was no want of room. Hence, 
the least channel where water runs, or may run, is 
important, and is dignified with a name. We read 
that there is no running water in Chatham, which is 
the next town. The barren aspect of the land would 
hardly be believed if described. It was such soil, or 
rather land, as, to judge from appearances, no farmer 
in the interior would think of cultivating, or even 
fencing. Generally, the ploughed fields of the Cape 
look white and yellow, like a mixture of salt and 
Indian meal. This is called soil. All an inlander's 
notions of soil and fertility will be confounded by a 
visit to these parts, and he will not be able, for some 
time afterward, to distinguish soil from sand. The 
historian of Chatham says of a part of that town, which 
has been gained from the sea: "There is a doubtful 
appearance of a soil beginning to be formed. It is 
styled douhtjul, because it would not be observed by 
every eye, and perhaps not acknowledged by many." 
We thought that this would not be a bad description 
of the greater part of the Cape. There is a ''beach" 



THE PLAINS OF NAUSET. 35 

on the west side of Eastham, which we crossed the 
next summer, half a mile wide, and stretching across 
the township, containing seventeen hundred acres, 
on which there is not now a particle of vegetable 
mould, though it formerly produced wheat. All 
sands are here called "beaches," whether they are 
waves of water or of air, that dash against them, since 
they commonly have their origin on the shore. "The 
sand in some places," says the historian of Eastham, 
"lodging against the beach -grass, has been raised into 
hills fifty feet high, where twenty-five years ago no 
hills existed. In others it has filled up small valleys, 
and swamps. Where a strong-rooted bush stood, the ap- 
pearance is singular : a mass of earth and sand adheres 
to it, resembling a small tower. In several places, rocks, 
which were formerly covered with soil, are disclosed, and 
being lashed by the sand, driven against them by the 
wind, look as if they were recently dug from a quarry." 
We were surprised to hear of the great crops of 
corn which are still raised in Eastham, notwithstanding 
the real and apparent barrenness. Our landlord in 
Orleans had told us that he raised three or four hun- 
dred bushels of corn annually, and also of the great 
number of pigs which he fattened. In Champlain's 
"Voyages," there is a plate representing the Indian 
cornfields hereabouts, with their wigwams in the 
midst, as they appeared in 1605, and it was here that 
the Pilgrims, to quote their own words, "bought eight 
or ten hogsheads of corn and beans" of the Nauset 
Indians, in 1622, to keep themselves from starving.^ 

1 They touched after this at a place called Mattachiest, 
where they got more corn; but their shallop being cast away 
in a storm, the Governor was obliged to return to Plymouth 



36 CAPE COD. 

"In 1667 the town [of Eastham] voted that every 
housekeeper should kill twelve blackbirds or three 
crows, which did great damage to the com ; and this 
vote was repeated for many years." In 1695 an addi- 
tional order was passed, namely, that "every un- 
married man in the township shall kill six blackbirds, 
or three crows, while he remains single; as a penalty 
for not doing it, shall not be married until he obey this 
order." The blackbirds, however, still molest the 
com. I saw them at it the next summer, and there 
were many scarecrows, if not scare-blackbirds, in the 
fields, which I often mistook for men. From which 
I concluded, that either many men were not married, 
or many blackbirds were. Yet they put but three or 
four kernels in a hill, and let fewer plants remain 
than we do. In the account of Eastham, in the "His- 
torical Collections," printed in 1802, it is said, that 
"more corn is produced than the inhabitants consume, 
and about a thousand bushels are annually sent to 
market. The soil being free from stones, a plough 
passes through it speedily; and after the com has 
come up, a small Cape horse, somewhat larger than a 
goat, will, with the assistance of two boys, easily hoe 
three or four acres in a day ; several farmers are accus- 

on foot, fifty miles through the woods. According to Mourt's 
Relation, " he came safely home, though weary and sur- 
hated,^' that is, foot-sore. (Ital. sobatiere, Lat. sub or solea 
battere, to bruise the soles of the feet; v. Die. Not "from 
acerbatus, embittered or aggrieved," as one commentator 
on this passage supposes.) This word is of very rare occur- 
rence, being applied only to governors and persons of like 
description, who are in that predicament; though such 
generally have considerable mileage allowed them, and might 
save their soles if they cared. 



THE PLAINS OF NA USE T. 37 

tomed to produce five hundred bushels of grain annu- 
ally, and not long since one raised eight hundred bush- 
els on sixty acres." Similar accounts are given to-day; 
indeed, the recent accounts are in some instances 
suspectable repetitions of the old, and I have no doubt 
that their statements are as often founded on the 
exception as the rule, and that by far the greater 
number of acres are as barren as they appear to be. 
It is sufficiently remarkable that any crops can be 
raised here, and it may be owing, as others have 
suggested, to the amount of moisture in the atmos- 
phere, the warmth of the sand, and the rareness of 
frosts. A miller, who was sharpening his stones, told 
me that, forty years ago, he had been to a husking here, 
where five hundred bushels were husked in one even- 
ing, and the com was piled six feet high or more, in the 
midst, but now, fifteen or eighteen bushels to an acre 
were an average yield. I never saw fields of such 
puny and unpromising looking com, as in this town. 
Probably the inhabitants are contented with small 
crops from a great surface easily cultivated. It is 
not always the most fertile land that is the most 
profitable, and this sand may repay cultivation, as 
well as the fertile bottoms of the West. It is said, 
moreover, that the vegetables raised in the sand, 
without manure, are remarkably sweet, the pumpkins 
especially, though when their seed is planted in the 
interior they soon degenerate. I can testify that the 
vegetables here, when they succeed at all, look re- 
markably green and healthy, though perhaps it is 
partly by contrast with the sand. Yet the inhabitants 
of the Cape towns, generally, do not raise their own 
meal or pork. Their gardens are commonly Uttle 



38 CAPE COD. 

patches, that have been redeemed from the edges of 
the marshes and swamps. 

All the morning we had heard the sea roar on the 
eastern shore, which was several miles distant ; for it 
still felt the efTects of the storm in which the St. John 
was wrecked, — though a school-boy, whom we over- 
took, hardly knew what we meant, his ears were so 
used to it. He would have more plainly heard the 
same sound in a shell. It was a very inspiriting sound 
to walk by, filling the whole air, that of the sea dash- 
ing against the land, heard several miles inland. 
Instead of having a dog to growl before your door, to 
have an Atlantic Ocean to growl for a whole Cape ! 
On the whole, we were glad of the storm, which would 
show us the ocean in its angriest mood. Charles 
Darwin was assured that the roar of the surf on the 
coast of Chiloe, after a heavy gale, could be heard at 
night a distance of "21 sea miles across a hilly and 
wooded country." We conversed with the boy we 
have mentioned, who might have been eight years old, 
making him walk the while under the lee of our um- 
brella; for we thought it as important to know what 
was life on the Cape to a boy as to a man. We 
learned from him where the best grapes were to be 
found in that neighborhood. He was carrying his 
dinner in a pail; and, without any impertinent ques- 
tions being put by us, it did at length appear of what 
it consisted. The homehest facts are always the most 
acceptable to an inquiring mind. At length, before 
we got to Eastham meeting-house, we left the road and 
struck across the country for the eastern shore at 
Nauset Lights, — three lights close together, two or 
three miles distant from us. They were so many that 



THE PLAINS OF N A USE T. 39 

they might be distinguished from others; but this 
seemed a shiftless and costly way of accomplishing that 
object. We found ourselves at once on an apparently 
boundless plain, without a tree or a fence, or, with one 
or two exceptions, a house in sight. Instead of fences, 
the earth was sometimes thrown up into a slight ridge. 
My companion compared it to the rolling prairies of 
Ilhnois. In the storm of wind and rain which raged 
when we traversed it, it no doubt appeared more vast 
and desolate than it really is. As there were no hills, 
but only here and there a dry hollow in the midst of 
the waste, and the distant horizon was concealed by 
mist, we did not know whether it was high or low. A 
solitary traveller, whom we saw perambulating in the 
distance, loomed like a giant. He appeared to walk 
slouchingly, as if held up from above by straps under 
his shoulders, as much as supported by the plain be- 
low. Men and boys would have appeared alike at a 
Httle distance, there being no object by which to 
measure them. Indeed, to an inlander, the Cape 
landscape is a constant mirage. This kind of country 
extended a mile or two each way. These were the 
''Plains of Nauset," once covered with wood, where in 
winter the winds howl and the snow blows right 
merrily in the face of the traveller. I was glad to 
have got out of the towns, where I am wont to feel 
unspeakably mean and disgraced, — to have left 
behind me for a season the bar-rooms of Massachu- 
setts, where the full-grown are not weaned from sav- 
age and filthy habits, — still sucking a cigar. My 
spirits rose in proportion to the outward dreari- 
ness. The towns need to be ventilated. The gods 
would be pleased to see some pure flames from 



40 CAPE COD. 

their altars. They are not to be appeased with 
cigar-smoke. 

As we thus skirted the back -side of the towns, for we 
did not enter any village, till we got to Provincetown, 
we read their histories under our umbrellas, rarely 
meeting anybody. The old accounts are the richest 
in topography, which was what we wanted most ; and, 
indeed, in most things else, for I find that the readable 
parts of the modern accounts of these towns consist, 
in a great measure, of quotations, acknowledged and 
unacknowledged, from the older ones, without any 
additional information of equal interest; — town 
histories, which at length run into a history of the 
Church of that place, that being the only story they 
have to tell, and conclude by quoting the Latin epi- 
taphs of the old pastors, having been written in the 
good old days of Latin and of Greek. They will go 
back to the ordination of every minister, and tell you 
faithfully who made the introductory prayer, and 
who delivered the sermon ; who made the ordaining 
prayer, and who gave the charge; who extended the 
right hand of fellowship, and who pronounced the 
benediction; also how many ecclesiastical councils 
convened from time to time to inquire into the ortho- 
doxy of some minister, and the names of all who com- 
posed them. As it will take us an hour to get over 
this plain, and there is no variety in the prospect, 
peculiar as it is, I will read a little in the history of 
Eastham the while. 

When the committee from Plymouth had purchased 
the territory of Eastham of the Indians, " it was de- 
manded, who laid claim to Billingsgate?" which was 
understood to be all that part of the Cape north of 



THE PLAINS OF NA USE T. 4 1 

what they had purchased. "The answer was, there 
was not any who owned it. 'Then,' said the com- 
mittee, 'that land is ours.' The Indians answered, that 
it was." This was a remarkable assertion and 
admission. The Pilgrims appear to have regarded 
themselve as Not Any's representatives. Perhaps 
this was the first instance of that quiet way of "speak- 
ing for" a place not yet occupied, or at least not im- 
proved as much as it may be, which their descendants 
have practised, and are still practising so extensively. 
Not Any seems to have been the sole proprietor of all 
America before the Yankees. But history says, that 
when the Pilgrims had held the lands of Billingsgate 
many years, at length, "appeared an Indian, who 
styled himself Lieutenant Anthony," who laid claim 
to them, and of him they bought them. Who knows 
but a Lieutenant Anthony may be knocking at the 
door of the White House some day ? At any rate, I 
know that if you hold a thing unjustly, there will 
surely be the devil to pay at last. 

Thomas Prince, who was several times the governor 
of the Plymouth colony, was the leader of the settle- 
ment of Eastham. There was recently standing, on 
what was once his farm, in this town, a pear-tree which 
is said to have been brought from England, and planted 
there by him, about two hundred years ago. It was 
blown down a few months before we were there. A 
late account says that it was recently in a vigorous 
state; the fruit small, but excellent ; and it yielded on 
an average fifteen bushels. Some appropriate lines 
have been addressed to it, by a Mr. Heman Doane, 
from which I will quote, partly because they are the 
only specimen of Cape Cod verse which I remem- 



42 CAPE COD. 

ber to have seen, and partly because they are not 
bad. 

" Two hundred years have, on the wings of Time, 

Passed with their joys and woes, since thou. Old Tree ! 
• Put forth thy first leaves in this foreign clime, 
Transplanted from the soil beyond the sea. 



[These stars represent the more clerical lines, and 
also those v^hich have deceased.] 

" That exiled band long since have passed away. 

And still. Old Tree ! thou standest in the place 
Where Prince's hand did plant thee in his day, — 

An undesigned memorial of his race 
And time; of those our honored fathers, when 

They came from Plymouth o'er and settled here; 
Doane, Higgins, Snow, and other worthy men, 

Whose names their sons remember to revere. 



" Old Time has thinned thy boughs. Old Pilgrim Tree! 
And bowed thee with the weight of many years; 
Yet, 'mid the frosts of age, thy bloom we see, 
And yearly still thy mellow fruit appears." 

There are some other lines which I might quote, if 
they were not tied to unworthy companions, by the 
rhyme. When one ox will lie down, the yoke bears 
hard on him that stands up. 

One of the first settlers of Eastham was Deacon 
John Doane, who died in 1707, aged one hundred and 
ten. Tradition says that he was rocked in a cradle 
several of his last years. That, certainly, was not an 
Achillean life. His mother must have let him slip 
when she dipped him into the liquor which was to 
make him invulnerable, and he went in, heels and all. 



THE PLAINS OF NAUSET. 43 

Some of the stone-bounds to his farm, which he set up, 
are standing to-day, with his initials cut in them. 

The ecclesiastical history of this town interested us 
somewhat. It appears that "they very early built a 
small meeting-house, twenty feet square, with a 
thatched roof through which they might fire their 
muskets," — of course, at the Devil. "In 1662, the 
town agreed that a part of every whale cast on shore be 
appropriated for the support of the ministry." No 
doubt there seemed to be some propriety in thus leav- 
ing the support of the ministers to Providence, whose 
servants they are, and who alone rules the storms; 
for, when few whales were cast up, they might suspect 
that their worship was not acceptable. The ministers 
must have sat upon the cliffs in every storm, and 
watched the shore wdth anxiety. And, for my part, 
if I were a minister, I would rather trust to the bowels 
of the billows, on the back -side of Cape Cod, to cast 
up a whale for me, than to the generosity of many a 
country parish that I know. You cannot say of a 
country minister's salary, commonly, that it is "very 
like a whale." Nevertheless, the minister who de- 
pended on whales cast up must have had a trying time 
of it. I would rather have gone to the Falkland Isles 
with a harpoon, and done with it. Think of a whale 
having the breath of life beaten out of him by a storm, 
and dragging in over the bars and guzzles, for the 
support of the ministry ! What a consolation it must 
have been to him ! I have heard of a minister, who 
had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridgewater 
for as long a time as he could tell a cod from a had- 
dock. Generous as it seems, this condition would 
empty most country pulpits forthwith, for it is long 



44 CAPE COD. 

since the fishers of men were fishermen. Also, a duty 
was put on mackerel here to support a free-school; in 
other words, the mackerel-school was taxed in order 
that the children's school might be free. "In 1665 
the Court passed a law to inflict corporal punishment 
on all persons, who resided in the towns of this govern- 
ment, who denied the Scriptures." Think of a man 
being whipped on a spring morning, till he was con- 
strained to confess that the Scriptures were true ! 
"It was also voted by the town, that all persons who 
should stand out of the meeting-house during the time 
of divine service should be set in the stocks." It 
behooved such a town to see that sitting in the meet- 
ing-house was nothing akin to sitting in the stocks, 
lest the penalty of obedience to the law might be 
greater than that of disobedience. This was the 
Eastham famous of late years for its camp-meetings, 
held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from 
all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason 
for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful develop- 
ment of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that 
a large portion of the population are women whose 
husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or 
else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the 
ministers left behind. The old account says that 
"hysteric fits are very common in Orleans, Eastham, 
and the towns below, particularly on Sunday, in the 
times of divine service. When one woman is afTected, 
five or six others generally sympathize with her; and 
the congregation is thrown into the utmost confusion. 
Several old men suppose, unphilosophically and un- 
charitably, perhaps, that the will is partly concerned, 
and that ridicule and threats would have a tendency to 



THE PLAINS OF NA USE T. 45 

prevent the evil." How this is now we did not learn. 
We saw one singularly masculine woman, however, in 
a house on this very plain, who did not look as if she 
was ever troubled with hysterics, or sympathized with 
those that were ; or, perchance, life itself was to her a 
hysteric fit, — a Nauset woman, of a hardness and 
coarseness such as no man ever possesses or suggests. 
It was enough to see the vertebrae and sinews of her 
neck, and her set jaws of iron, which would have 
bitten a board-nail in two in their ordinary action, — 
braced against the world, talking like a man-of-war's- 
man in petticoats, or as if shouting to you through a 
breaker; who looked as if it made her head ache to 
live; hard enough for any enormity. I looked upon 
her as one who had committed infanticide; who never 
had a brother, unless it were some wee thing that died 
in infancy, — for what need of him ? — and whose 
father must have died before she was born. This 
woman told us that the camp-meetings were not held 
the previous summer for fear of introducing the cholera, 
and that they would have been held earlier this sum- 
mer, but the rye was so backward that straw would not 
have been ready for them; for they lie in straw. 
There are sometimes one hundred and fifty ministers, 
(!) and five thousand hearers, assembled. The 
ground, which is called Millennium Grove, is owned 
by a company in Boston, and is the most suitable, or 
rather unsuitable, for this purpose of any that I saw 
on the Cape. It is fenced, and the frames of the tents 
are, at all times, to be seen interspersed among the 
oaks. They have an oven and a pump, and keep all 
their kitchen utensils and tent coverings and furniture 
in a permanent building on the spot. They select a 



46 CAPE COD. 

time for their meetings when the moon is full. A man 
is appointed to clear out the pump a week beforehand, 
while the ministers are clearing their throats; but, 
probably, the latter do not always dehver as pure a 
stream as the former. I saw the heaps of clam-shells 
left under the tables, where they had feasted in pre- 
vious summers, and supposed, of course, that that 
was the work of the unconverted, or the backsliders 
and scoffers. It looked as if a camp-meeting must be a 
singular combination of a prayer-meeting and a picnic. 
The first minister settled here was the Rev. Samuel 
Treat, in 1672, a gentleman who is said to be "en- 
titled to a distinguished rank among the evangelists 
of New England." He converted many Indians, as 
well as white men, in his day, and translated the Con- 
fession of Faith into the Nauset language. These 
were the Indians concerning whom their first teacher, 
Richard Bourne, wrote to Gookin, in 1674, that he had 
been to see one who was sick, ''and there came from 
him very savory and heavenly expressions," but, with 
regard to the mass of them, he says, "the truth is, that 
many of them are very loose in their course, to my 
heartbreaking sorrow." Mr. Treat is described as a 
Calvinist of the strictest kind, not one of those who, 
by giving up or explaining away, become Hke a por- 
cupine disarmed of its quills, but a consistent Cal- 
vinist, who can dart his quills to a distance and 
courageously defend himself. There exists a volume 
of his sermons in manuscript, "which," says a com- 
mentator, "appear to have been designed for publica- 
tion." I quote the following sentences at second 
hand, from a Discourse on Luke xvi. 23, addressed 
to sinners : — 



THE PLAINS OF NAUSET. 47 

"Thou must erelong go to the bottomless pit. 
Hell hath enlarged herself, and is ready to receive thee. 
There is room enough for thy entertainment. . . . 

''Consider, thou art going to a place prepared by 
God on purpose to exalt his justice in, — a place made 
for no other employment but torments. Hell is 
God's house of correction ; and, remember, God doth 
all things like himself. When God would show his 
justice, and what is the weight of his wrath, he makes 
a hell where it shall, indeed, appear to purpose. . . . 
Woe to thy soul when thou shalt be set up as a butt 
for the arrows of the Almighty. . . . 

"Consider, God himself shall be the principal agent 
in thy misery, — his breath is the bellows which blows 
up the flame of hell forever; — and if he punish thee, 
if he meet thee in his fury, he will not meet thee as a 
man; he v/ill give thee an omnipotent blow." 

"Some think sinning ends with this Hfe; but it is 
a mistake. The creature is held under an everlasting 
law; the damned increase in sin in hell. Possibly, 
the mention of this may please thee. But, remember, 
there shall be no pleasant sins there; no eating, 
drinking, singing, dancing, wanton dalliance, and 
drinking stolen waters: but damned sins, bitter, 
helHsh sins; sins exasperated by torments, cursing 
God, spite, rage, and blasphemy. — The guilt of all 
thy sins shall be laid upon thy soul, and be made so 
many heaps of fuel. . . . 

"Sinner, I beseech thee, reahze the truth of these 
things. Do not go about to dream that this is de- 
rogatory to God's mercy, and nothing but a vain fable 
to scare children out of their wits withal. God can be 
merciful, though he make thee miserable. He shall 



48 CAPE COD. 

have monuments enough of that precious attribute, 
shining hke stars in the place of glory, and singing 
eternal hallelujahs to the praise of Him that redeemed 
them, though, to exalt the power of his justice, he 
damn sinners heaps upon heaps." 

"But," continues the same writer, ''with the advan- 
tage of proclaiming the doctrine of terror, which is 
naturally productive of a sublime and impressive style 
of eloquence ('Triumphat ventoso gloriae curru orator, 
qui pectus angit, irritat, et implet terroribus.' Vid. 
Burnet, De Stat. Mort., p. 309), he could not attain 
the character of a popular preacher. His voice was 
so loud, that it could be heard at a great distance from 
the meeting-house, even amidst the shrieks of hys- 
terical women, and the winds that howled over the 
plains of Nauset ; but there was no more music in it 
than in the discordant sounds with which it was 
mingled." 

"The effect of such preaching," it is said, "was that 
his hearers were several times, in the course of his 
ministry, awakened and alarmed ; and on one occa.sion 
a comparatively innocent young man was frightened 
nearly out of his wits, and Mr. Treat had to exert 
himself to make hell seem somewhat cooler to him"; 
yet we are assured that "Treat's manners were cheer- 
ful, his conversation pleasant, and sometimes face- 
tious, but always decent. He was fond of a stroke of 
humor, and a practical joke, and manifested his relish 
for them by long and loud fits of laughter." 

This was the man of whom a well-known anecdote is 
told, which doubtless many of my readers have heard, 
but which, nevertheless, I will venture to quote : — 

"After his marriage with the daughter of Mr. 



THE PLAINS OF NAUSET. 49 

Willard (pastor of the South Church in Boston), he 
was sometimes invited by that gentleman to preach in 
his pulpit. Mr. Willard possessed a graceful delivery, 
a masculine and harmonious voice; and, though he 
did not gain much reputation by his 'Body of Divin- 
ity,' which is frequently sneered at, particularly by 
those who have read it, yet in his sermons are strength 
of thought and energy of language. The natural 
consequence was that he was generally admired. 
Mr. Treat having preached one of his best discourses 
to the congregation of his father-in-law, in his usual 
unhappy manner, excited universal disgust; and 
several nice judges waited on Mr. Willard, and begged 
that Mr. Treat, who was a worthy, pious man, it was 
true, but a wretched preacher, might never be invited 
into his pulpit again. To this request Mr. Willard 
made no reply; but he desired his son-in-law to lend 
him the discourse; which, being left with him, he 
delivered it without alteration to his people a few 
weeks after. They ran to Mr. Willard and requested 
a copy for the press. 'See the difference,' they cried, 
'between yourself and your son-in-law; you have 
preached a sermon on the same text as Mr. Treat's, 
but whilst his was contemptible, yours is excellent.' 
As is observed in a note, 'Mr. Willard, after producing 
the sermon in the handwriting of Mr. Treat, might 
have addressed these sage critics in the words of 
Phaedrus, 

'"En hie declarat, quales sitis judices.'"^ 

Mr. Treat died of a stroke of the palsy, just after the 
memorable storm known as the Great Snow, which left 

1 Lib. V. Fab. 5. 



50 CAPE COD. 

the ground around his house entirely bare, but heaped 
up the snow in the road to an uncommon height. 
Through this an arched way was dug, by which the 
Indians bore his body to the grave. 

The reader will imagine us, all the while, steadily 
traversing that extensive plain in a direction a Uttle 
north of east toward Nauset Beach, and reading under 
our umbrellas as we sailed, while it blowed hard with 
mingled mist and rain, as if we were approaching a fit 
anniversary of Mr. Treat's funeral. We fancied that 
it was such a moor as that on which somebody perished 
in the snow, as is related in the "Lights and Shadows 
of Scottish Life." 

The next minister settled here w^as the "Rev. 
Samuel Osbom, who was bom in Ireland, and edu- 
cated at the University of Dublin." He is said to have 
been "A man of wisdom and virtue," and taught his 
people the use of peat, and the art of drying and 
preparing it, which as they had scarcely any other fuel, 
was a great blessing to them. He also introduced 
improvements in agriculture. But, notwithstanding 
his many services, as he embraced the religion of 
Arminius, some of his flock became dissatisfied. At 
length, an ecclesiastical council, consisting of ten 
ministers, with their churches, sat upon him, and they, 
naturally enough, spoiled his usefulness. The council 
convened at the desire of two divine philosophers, — 
Joseph Doane and Nathaniel Freeman. 

In their report they say, "It appears to the council 
that the Rev. Mr. Osborn hath, in his preaching to this 
people, said, that what Christ did and suffered doth 
nothing abate or diminish our obligation to obey the 
law of God, and that Christ's suffering and obedience 



THE PLAINS OF NA USE T. 5 i 

were for himself; both parts of which, we think, con- 
tain dangerous error." 

"Also: 'It hath been said, and doth appear to this 
council, that the Rev. Mr. Osborn, both in public and 
in private, asserted that there are no promises in the 
Bible but what are conditional, which we think, also, 
to be an error, and do say that there are promises which 
are absolute and without any condition, — such as the 
promise of a new heart, and that he will write his law 
in our hearts.'" 

"Also, they say, 'it hath been alleged, and doth 
appear to us, that Mr. Osborn hath declared, that 
obedience is a considerable cause of a person's justifi- 
cation, which, we think, contains very dangerous 
error.'" 

And many the like distinctions they made, such as 
some of my readers, probably, are more familiar with 
than I am. So, far in the East, among the Yezidis, or 
Worshippers of the Devil, so-called, the Chaldaeans, 
and others, according to the testimony of travellers, 
you may still hear these remarkable disputations on 
doctrinal points going on. Osborn was, accordingly, 
dismissed, and he removed to Boston, where he kept 
school for many years. But he was fully justified, 
methinks, by his works in the peat-meadow ; one proof 
of which is, that he lived to be between ninety and one 
hundred years old. 

The next minister was the Rev. Benjamin Webb, of 
whom, though a neighboring clergyman pronounced 
him "the best man and the best minister whom he 
ever knew," yet the historian says, that, 

"As he spent his days in the uniform discharge of 
his duty (it reminds one of a country muster) and 



52 



CAPE COD. 



there were no shades to give rehef to his character, 
not much can be said of him. (Pity the Devil did 
not plant a few shade-trees along his avenues.) His 
heart was as pure as the new-fallen snow, which 
completely covers every dark spot in a field ; his mind 
was as serene as the sky in a rnild evening in June, 
when the moon shines without a cloud. Name any 
virtue," and that virtue he practised; name any vice, 
and that vice he shunned. But if pecuUar qualities 
marked his character, they were his humihty, his gentle- 
ness, and his love of God. The people had long been 
taught by a son of thunder (Mr. Treat) : in him they 
were instructed by a son of consolation, who sweetly 
allured them to virtue by soft persuasion, and by 
exhibiting the mercy of the Supreme Being; for his 
thoughts were so much in heaven, that they seldom 
descended to the dismal regions below; and though 
of the same reUgious sentiments as Mr. Treat, yet his 
attention was turned to those glad tidings of great joy 
which a Saviour came to pubhsh." 

We were interested to hear that such a man had 
trodden the plains of Nauset. 

Turning over further in our book, our eyes fell on 
the name of the Rev. Jonathan Bascom, of Orleans: 
*'Senex emunctae naris, doctus, et auctor elegantium 
verborum, facetus, et dulcis festique sermonis." 
And, again, on that of the Rev. Nathan Stone, of 
Dennis: "Vir humiHs, mitis, blandus, advenarum 
hospes ; (there was need of him there ;) suis commodis 
in terra non studens, reconditis thesauris in coelo." 
An easy virtue that, there, for methinks no inhabitant 
of Dennis could be very studious about his earthly 
commodity, but must regard the bulk of his treasures 



THE PLAINS OF NA USE T. 53 

as in heaven. But probably the most just and perti- 
nent character of all is that which appears to be given 
to the Rev. Ephraim Briggs, of Chatham, in the lan- 
guage of the later Romans, ''Seip, sepoese, sepoemese, 
wechekiim" — v^^hich not being interpreted, we know 
not what it means, though we have no doubt it occurs 
somewhere in the Scriptures, probably in the Apostle 
Eliot's Epistle to the Nipmucks. 

Let no one think that I do not love the old ministers. 
They were, probably, the best men of their generation, 
and they deserve that their biographies should fill the 
pages of the town histories. If I could but hear the 
"glad tidings" of which they tell, and which, per- 
chance, they heard, I might write in a worthier strain 
than this. 

There was no better way to make the reader realize 
how wide and peculiar that plain was, and how long 
it took to traverse it, than by inserting these extracts 
in the midst of my narrative. 



IV. 

THE BEACH. 

At length we reached the seemingly retreating 
boundary of the plain, and entered what had appeared 
at a distance an upland marsh, but proved to be dry 
sand covered with Beach-grass, the Bearberry, Bay- 
berry, Shrub-oaks, and Beach-plum, shghtly ascending 
as we approached the shore ; then, crossing over a belt 
of sand on which nothing grew, though the roar of the 
sea sounded scarcely louder than before, and we were 
prepared to go half a mile farther, we suddenly stood 
on the edge of a bluflf overlooking the Atlantic. Far 
below us was the beach, from half a dozen to a dozen 
rods in width, with a long line of breakers rushing to 
the strand. The sea was exceedingly dark and stormy, 
the sky completely overcast, the clouds still dropping 
rain, and the wind seemed to blow not so much as the 
exciting cause, as from sympathy with the already agi- 
tated ocean. The waves broke on the bars at some 
distance from the shore, and curving green or yellow 
as if over so many unseen dams, ten or twelve feet 
high, Hke a thousand waterfalls, rolled in foam to the 
sand. There was nothing but that savage ocean be- 
tween us and Europe. 

Having got down the bank, and as close to the water 
54 



THE BEACH. 



55 

as we could, where the sand was the hardest, leaving 
the Nauset Lights behind us, we began to walk 
leisurely up the beach, in a northwest direction, 
towards Provincetown, which was about twenty-five 
miles distant, still sailing under our umbrellas with a 
strong aft wind, admiring in silence, as we walked, the 
great force of the ocean stream, — 

TTOTa/xoio ixiya ad^vos '^Keai^oio. 

The white breakers were rushing to the shore; the 
foam ran up the sand, and then ran back as far as we 
could see (and we imagined how much farther along 
the Atlantic coast, before and behind us), as regularly, 
to compare great things with small, as the master of a 
choir beats time with his white wand; and ever and 
anon a higher wave caused us hastily to deviate from 
our path, and we looked back on our tracks filled with 
water and foam. The breakers looked like droves of 
a thousand wild horses of Neptune, rushing to the 
shore, with their white manes streaming far behind ; 
and when, at length, the sun shone for a moment, their 
manes were rainbow-tinted. Also, the long kelp- 
weed was tossed up from time to time, like the tails 
of sea-cows sporting in the brine. 

There was not a sail in sight, and we saw none that 
day, — for they had all sought harbors in the late 
storm, and had not been able to get out again ; and the 
only human beings whom we saw on the beach for 
several days, were one or two wreckers looking for 
drift-wood, and fragments of wrecked vessels. After 
an easterly storm in the spring, this beach is sometimes 
strewn with eastern wood from one end to the other, 
which, as it belongs to him who saves it, and the Cape 



56 CAPE COD. 

is nearly destitute of wood, is a Godsend to the 
inhabitants. We soon met one of these wreckers, — 
a regular Cape Cod man, with whom we parleyed, with 
a bleached and weather-beaten face, within whose 
wrinkles I distinguished no particular feature. It 
was like an old sail endowed with Hfe, — a hanging- 
cHff of weather-beaten flesh, — Hke one of the clay 
boulders which occurred in that sand-bank. He had 
on a hat which had seen salt water, and a coat of 
many pieces and colors, though it was mainly the 
color of the beach, as if it had been sanded. His 
variegated back — for his coat had many patches, 
even between the shoulders — was a rich study to us, 
when we had passed him and looked round. It 
might have been dishonorable for him to have so 
many scars behind, it is true, if he had not had many 
more and more serious ones in front. He looked as if 
he sometimes saw a doughnut, but never descended to 
comfort; too grave to laugh, too tough to cry; as 
indifferent as a clam, — like a sea -clam with hat on 
and legs, that was out walking the strand. He may 
have been one of the Pilgrims, — Peregrine White, 
at least, — who has kept on the back -side of the Cape, 
and let the centuries go by. He was looking for 
wrecks, old logs, water-logged and covered with 
barnacles, or bits of boards and joists, even chips which 
he drew out of the reach of the tide, and stacked up to 
dry. When the log was too large to carry far, he 
cut it up where the last wave had left it, or roUing it a 
few feet, appropriated it by sticking two sticks into 
the ground crosswise above it. Some rotten trunk, 
which in Maine cumbers the ground, and is, perchance, 
thrown into the water on purpose, is here thus care- 



THE BEACH. 57 

fully picked up, split and dried, and husbanded. Be- 
fore winter the wrecker painfully carries these things 
up the bank on his shoulders by a long diagonal 
slanting path made with a hoe in the sand, if there is 
no hollow at hand. You may see his hooked pike- 
staff always lying on the bank ready for use. He is 
the true monarch of the beach, whose "right there is 
none to dispute," and he is as much identified with it 
as a beach-bird. 

Crantz, in his account of Greenland, quotes Dala- 
gen's relation of the ways and usages of the Green - 
landers, and says, ''Whoever finds drift-wood, or the 
spoils of a shipwreck on the strand, enjoys it as his 
own, though he does not live there. But he must haul 
it ashore and lay a stone upon it, as a token that some 
one has taken possession of it, and this stone is the 
deed of security, for no other Greenlander will offer 
to meddle with it afterwards." Such is the instinctive 
law of nations. We have also this account of drift- 
wood in Crantz: ''As he (the Founder of Nature) has 
denied this frigid rocky region the growth of trees, he 
has bid the streams of the Ocean to convey to its 
shores a great deal of wood, which accordingly comes 
floating thither, part without ice, but the most part 
along with it, and lodges itself between the islands. 
Were it not for this, we Europeans should have no 
wood to burn there, and the poor Greenlanders (who, 
it is true, do not use wood, but train, for burning) 
would, however, have no wood to roof their houses, 
to erect their tents, as also to build their boats, and 
to shaft their arrows (yet there grew some small but 
crooked alders, &c.), by which they must procure their 
maintenance, clothing and train for warmth, hght, 



58 CAPE COD. 

and cooking. Among this wood are great trees torn 
up by the roots, which by driving up and down for 
many years and rubbing on the ice, are quite bare of 
branches and bark, and corroded with great wood- 
worms. A small part of this drift-wood are willows, 
alder and birch trees, which come out of the bays in 
the south {i.e. of Greenland) ; also large trunks of 
aspen -trees, which must come from a greater distance; 
but the greatest part is pine and fir. We find also a 
good deal of a sort of wood finely veined, with few 
branches; this I fancy is larch-wood, which likes to 
decorate the sides of lofty, stony mountains. There 
is also a solid, reddish wood, of a more agreeable 
fragrance than the common fir, with visible cross- 
veins; which I take to be the same species as the 
beautiful silver-firs, or zirhel, that have the smell of 
cedar, and grow on the high Grison hills, and the 
Switzers wainscot their rooms with them." The 
wrecker directed us to a slight depression, called 
Snow's Hollow, by which we ascended the bank, — 
for elsewhere, if not difficult, it was inconvenient to 
climb it on account of the sliding sand, which filled 
our shoes. 

This sand-bank — the backbone of the Cape — 
rose directly from the beach to the height of a hundred 
feet or more above the ocean. It was with singular 
emotions that we first stood upon it and discovered 
what a place we had chosen to walk on. On our 
right, beneath us, was the beach of smooth and gently- 
sloping sand, a dozen rods in width ; next, the endless 
series of white breakers; further still, the light green 
water over the bar, which runs the whole length of 
the forearm of the Cape, and beyond this stretched 



THE BEACH. 59 

the unwearied and illimitable ocean. On our left, 
extending back from the very edge of the bank, was a 
perfect desert of shining sand, from thirty to eighty 
rods in width, skirted in the distance by small sand- 
hills fifteen or twenty feet high ; between which, how- 
ever, in some places, the sand penetrated as much 
farther. Next commenced the region of vegetation, — 
a succession of small hills and valleys covered with 
shrubbery, now glowing with the brightest imaginable 
autumnal tints; and beyond this were seen, here and 
there, the waters of the bay. Here, in Wellfleet, this 
pure sand plateau, known to sailors as the Table 
Lands of Eastham, on account of its appearance, as 
seen from the ocean, and because it once made a part 
of that town, — full fifty rods in width, and in many 
places much more, and sometimes full one hundred 
and fifty feet above the ocean, — stretched away 
northward from the southern boundary of the town, 
without a particle of vegetation, — as level almost as 
a table, — for two and a half or three miles, or as far 
as the eye could reach; slightly rising towards the 
ocean, then stooping to the beach, by as steep a slope 
as sand could he on, and as regular as a military 
engineer could desire. It was like the escarped ram- 
part of a stupendous fortress, whose glacis was the 
beach, and whose champaign the ocean. — From its 
surface we overlooked the greater part of the Cape. 
In short, we were traversing a desert, with the view of 
an autumnal landscape of extraordinary brilliancy, a 
sort of Promised Land, on the one hand, and the 
ocean on the other. Yet, though the prospect was 
so extensive, and the country for the most part desti- 
tute of trees, a house was rarely visible, — we never 



6o CAPE COD. 

saw one from the beach, — and the soHtude was that 
of the ocean and the desert combined. A thousand 
men could not have seriously interrupted it, but 
would have been lost in the vastness of the scenery 
as their footsteps in the sand. 

The whole coast is so free from rocks, that we saw 
but one or two for more than twenty miles. The sand 
was soft like the beach, and trying to the eyes, when 
the sun shone. A few piles of drift-wood, which some 
wreckers had painfully brought up the bank and 
stacked up there to dry, being the only objects in the 
desert, looked indefinitely large and distant, even like 
wigwams, though, when we stood near them, they 
proved to be insignificant little "jags" of wood. 

For sixteen miles, commencing at the Nauset Lights, 
the bank held its height, though farther north it was 
not so level as here, but interrupted by slight hollows, 
and the patches of Beach-grass and Bayberry fre- 
quently crept into the sand to its edge. There are 
some pages entitled "A Description of the Eastern 
Coast of the County of Barnstable," printed in 1802, 
pointing out the spots on which the Trustees of the 
Humane Society have erected huts called Charity or 
Humane Houses, ''and other places where shipwrecked 
seamen may look for shelter." Two thousand copies of 
this were dispersed, that every vessel which frequented 
this coast might be provided with one. I have read this 
Shipwrecked Seaman's Manual with a melancholy 
kind of interest, — for the sound of the surf, or, you 
might say, the moaning of the sea, is heard all through 
it, as if its author were the sole survivor of a shipwreck 
himself. Of this part of the coast he says: "This 
highland approaches the ocean with steep and lofty 



THE BEACH. 6 1 

banks, which it is extremely difficuh to dimb, espe- 
cially in a storm. In violent tempests, during very 
high tides, the sea breaks against the foot of them, 
rendering it then unsafe to v^alk on the strand v^hich 
lies between them and the ocean. Should the seaman 
succeed in his attempt to ascend them, he must for- 
bear to penetrate into the country, as houses are 
generally so remote that they would escape his research 
during the night; he must pass on to the valleys by 
which the banks are intersected. These valleys, which 
the inhabitants call Hollows, run at right angles 
with the shore, and in the middle or lowest part of 
them a road leads from the dwelling-houses to the 
sea." By the word road must not always be under- 
stood a visible cart-track. 

There were these two roads for us, — an upper and 
a lower one, — the bank and the beach ; both stretch- 
ing twenty-eight miles northwest, from Nauset Harbor 
to Race Point, without a single opening into the beach, 
and with hardly a serious interruption of the desert. 
If you were to ford the narrow and shallow inlet at 
Nauset Harbor, where there is not more than eight 
feet of water on the bar at full sea, you might walk 
ten or twelve miles farther, which would make a 
beach forty miles long, — and the bank and beach, 
on the east side of Nantucket, are but a continuation 
of these. I was comparatively satisfied. There I 
had got the Cape under me, as much as if I were 
riding it bare-backed. It was not as on the map, or 
seen from the stage-coach; but there I found it all 
out of doors, huge and real. Cape Cod I as it cannot be 
represented on a map, color it as you will ; the thing 
itself, than which there is nothing more like it, no 



62 CAPE COD. 

truer picture or account; which you cannot go farther 
and see. I cannot remember what I thought before 
that it was. They commonly celebrate those beaches 
only which have a hotel on them, not those which have 
a humane house alone. But I wished to see that 
seashore where man's works are wrecks; to put up at 
the true Atlantic House, where the ocean is land-lord 
as well as sea -lord, and comes ashore without a wharf 
for the landing; where the crumbUng land is the only 
invalid, or at best is but dry land, and that is all you 
can say of it. 

We walked on quite at our leisure, now on the 
beach, now on the bank, — sitting from time to time 
on some damp log, maple or yellow birch, which had 
long followed the seas, but had now at last settled on 
land; or under the lee of a sand-hill, on the bank, that 
we might gaze steadily on the ocean. The bank was 
so steep, that, where there was no danger of its cav- 
ing, we sat on its edge as on a bench. It was difficult 
for us landsmen to look out over the ocean without 
imagining land in the horizon ; yet the clouds appeared 
to hang low over it, and rest on the water as they never 
do on the land, perhaps on account of the great dis- 
tance to which we saw. The sand was not without 
advantage, for, though it was ''heavy" walking in it, 
it was soft to the feet; and, notwithstanding that it 
had been raining nearly two days, when it held up for 
half an hour, the sides of the sand-hills, which were 
porous and sliding, afforded a dry seat. All the 
aspects of this desert are beautiful, whether you behold 
it in fair weather or foul, or when the sun is just 
breaking out after a storm, and shining on its moist 
surface in the distance, it is so white, and pure, and 



THE BEACH. 63 

level, and each slight inequality and track is so dis- 
tinctly revealed; and when your eyes slide off this, 
they fall on the ocean. In summer the mackerel 
gulls — which here have their nests among the neigh- 
boring sand-hills — pursue the traveller anxiously, 
now and then diving close to his head with a squeak, 
and he may see them, like swallows, chase some crow 
which has been feeding on the beach, almost across the 
Cape. 

Though for some time I have not spoken of the 
roaring of the breakers, and the ceaseless flux and 
reflux of the waves, yet they did not for a moment 
cease to dash and roar, with such a tumult that, if you 
had been there, you could scarcely have heard my 
voice the while; and they are dashing and roaring this 
very moment, though it may be with less din and vio- 
lence, for there the sea never rests. We were wholly 
absorbed by this spectacle and tumult, and like 
Chryses, though in a different mood from him, we 
walked silent along the shore of the resounding sea. 

B^ 8' (ZKecDV Trapa Blva. 7roXv<^Ao«7/3oio QaX6.(T(Jif\<i?- 

I put in a little Greek now and then, partly because 
it sounds so much hke the ocean, — though I doubt if 
Homer's Mediterranean Sea ever sounded so loud as 
this. 

The attention of those who frequent the camp-meet- 
ings at Eastham is said to be divided between the 
preaching of the Methodists and the preaching of the 

* We have no word in English to express the sound of 
many waves, dashing at once, whether gently or violently, 
TToXvtpXoia-^oLos to the ear, and, in the ocean's gentle moods, 
an dvapid/jLov y^Xaa-fxa to the eye. 



64 CAPE COD. 

billows on the back -side of the Cape, for they all stream 
over here in the course of their stay. I trust that in 
this case the loudest voice carries it. With what 
effect may we suppose the ocean to say, "My hearers ! " 
to the multitude on the bank ! On that side some John 
N. Maffit; on this, the Reverend Poluphloisboios 
Thalassa. 

There was but little weed cast up here, and that 
kelp chiefly, there being scarcely a rock for rockweed 
to adhere to. Who has not had a vision from some 
vessel's deck, when he had still his land-legs on, of this 
great brown apron, drifting half upright, and quite 
submerged through the green water, clasping a stone 
or a deep-sea mussel in its unearthly fingers ? I have 
seen it carrying a stone half as large as my head. We 
sometimes watched a mass of this cable-like weed, as 
it was tossed up on the crest of a breaker, waiting 
with interest to see it come in, as if there was some 
treasure buoyed up by it; but we were always sur- 
prised and disappointed at the insignificance of the 
mass which had attracted us. As we looked out over 
the water, the smallest objects floating on it appeared 
indefinitely large, we were so impressed by the vastness 
of the ocean, and each one bore so large a proportion 
to the whole ocean, which we saw. We were so often 
disappointed in the size of such things as came ashore, 
the ridiculous bits of wood or weed, with which the 
ocean labored, that we began to doubt whether the 
Atlantic itself would bear a still closer inspection, and 
would not turn out to be but a small pond, if it should 
come ashore to us. This kelp, oar-weed, tangle, 
devil's-apron, sole-leather, or ribbon-weed, — as vari- 
ous species are called, — appeared to us a singularly 



THE BEACH. 65 

marine and fabulous product, a fit invention for 
Neptune to adorn his car with, or a freak of Proteus. 
All that is told of the sea has a fabulous sound to an 
inhabitant of the land, and all its products have a 
certain fabulous quality, as if they belonged to another 
planet, from sea-weed to a sailor's yarn, or a fish- 
story. In this element the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms meet and are strangely mingled. One 
species of kelp, according to Bory St. Vincent, has a 
stem fifteen hundred feet long, and hence is the longest 
vegetable known, and a brig's crew spent two days to 
no purpose collecting the trunks of another kind cast 
ashore on the Falkland Islands, mistaking it for 
drift-wood. (See Harvey on Alga) This species 
looked almost edible; at least, I thought that if I 
were starving I would try it. One sailor told me 
that the cows ate it. It cut like cheese; for I took 
the earliest opportunity to sit down and deliberately 
whittle up a fathom or two of it, that I might become 
more intimately acquainted with it, see how it cut, 
and if it were hollow all the way through. The blade 
looked like a broad belt, whose edges had been quilled, 
or as if stretched by hammering, and it was also 
twisted spirally. The extremity was generally worn 
and ragged from the lashing of the waves. A piece 
of the stem which I carried home shrunk to one 
quarter of its size a week afterward, and was com- 
pletely covered with crystals of salt like frost. The 
reader will excuse my greenness, — though it is not 
sea-greenness, like his, perchance, — for I live by a 
river shore, where this weed does not wash up. When 
we consider in what meadows it grew, and how it was 
raked, and in what kind of hay weather got in or out, 



66 CAPE COD. 

we may well be curious about it. One who is weather- 
wise has given the following account of the matter. 

"When descends on the Atlantic 
The gigantic 
Storm-wind of the equinox, 
Landward in his wrath he scourges 

The toiUng surges, 
Laden with sea-weed from the rocks. 

•'From Bermuda's reefs, from edges 
Of sunken ledges, 
On some far-off bright Azore; 
From Bahama and the dashing, 
Silver-flashing 
Surges of San Salvador; 

"From the trembling surf that buries 
The Orkneyan Skerries, 
Answering the hoarse Hebrides; 
And from wrecks and ships and drifting 
Spars, uplifting 
On the desolate rainy seas; 

"Ever drifting, drifting, drifting 
On the shifting 
Currents of the restless main." 

But he was not thinking of this shore, when he 
added : — 

"Till, in sheltered coves and reaches 
Of sandy beaches. 
All have found repose again." 

These weeds were the symbols of those grotesque 
and fabulous thoughts which have not yet got into the 
sheltered coves of literature. 

"Ever drifting, drifting, drifting 
On the shifting 



THE BEACH. 6/ 

Currents of the restless heart," 
A nd not yd ' ' in books recorded 
They, like hoarded 
Household words, no more depart." 

The beach was also strewn with beautiful sea-jellies, 
which the wreckers called Sun-squall, one of the lowest 
forms of animal life, some white, some wine-colored, 
and a foot in diameter. I at first thought that they 
were a tender part of some marine monster, which the 
storm or some other foe had mangled. What right 
has the sea to bear in its bosom such tender things as 
sea-jellies and mosses, when it has such a boisterous 
shore, that the stoutest fabrics are wrecked against it ? 
Strange that it should undertake to dandle such deli- 
cate children in its arm. I did not at first recognize 
these for the same which I had formerly seen in 
myriads in Boston Harbor, rising, with a waving 
motion, to the surface, as if to meet the sun, and dis- 
coloring the waters far and wide, so that I seemed to be 
saiHng through a mere sunfish soup. They say that 
when you endeavor to take one up, it will spill out 
the other side of your hand like quicksilver. Before 
the land rose out of the ocean, and became dry land, 
chaos reigned; and between high and low water 
mark, where she is partially disrobed and rising, a 
sort of chaos reigns still, which only anomalous crea- 
tures can inhabit. Mackerel-gulls were all the while 
flying over our heads and amid the breakers, sometimes 
two white ones pursuing a black one ; quite at home in 
the storm, though they are as delicate organizations as 
sea-jelHes and mosses; and we saw that they were 
adapted to their circumstances rather by their spirits 
than their bodies. Theirs must be an essentially 



eS CAPE COD. 

wilder, that is, less human, nature than that of larks 
and robins. Their note was like the sound of some 
vibrating metal, and harmonized well with the scenery 
and the roar of the surf, as if one had rudely touched 
the strings of the lyre, which ever lies on the shore; 
a ragged shred of ocean music tossed aloft on the 
spray. But if I were required to name a sound, 
the remembrance of which most perfectly revives the 
impression which the beach has made, it would be the 
dreary peep of the piping plover {Charadrius melo- 
dus) which haunts there. Their voices, too, are heard 
as a fugacious part in the dirge which is ever played 
along the shore for those mariners who have been lost 
in the deep since first it was created. But through 
all this dreariness we seemed to have a pure and un- 
quahfied strain of eternal melody, for always the same 
strain which is a dirge to one household is a morning 
song of rejoicing to another. 

A remarkable method of catching gulls, derived 
from the Indians, was practised in Wellfleet in 1794. 
''The Gull House," it is said, ''is built with crotchets, 
fixed in the ground on the beach," poles being stretched 
across for the top, and the sides made close with stakes 
and sea -weed. "The poles on the top are covered 
with lean whale. The man being placed within, is 
not discovered by the fowls, and while they are con- 
tending for and eating the flesh, he draws them in, one 
by one, between the poles, until he has collected forty 
or fifty." Hence, perchance, a man is said to be 
gulled, when he is taken in. We read that one "sort 
of gulls is called by the Dutch mallemucke, i.e. the 
fooHsh fly, because they fall upon a whale as eagerly 
as a fly, and, indeed, all gulls are foolishly bold and 



THE BEACH. 69 

easy to be shot. The Norwegians call this bird 
havhest, sea-horse (and the English translator says, 
it is probably what we call boobies). If they have 
eaten too much, they throw it up, and eat it again till 
they are tired. It is this habit in the gulls of parting 
with their property [disgorging the contents of their 
stomachs to the skuas], which has given rise to the 
terms gull, guller, and gulling, among men." We also 
read that they used to kill small birds which roosted on 
the beach at night, by making a fire with hog's lard 
in a frying-pan. The Indians probably used pine 
torches; the birds flocked to the hght, and were 
knocked down with a stick. We noticed holes dug 
near the edge of the bank, where gunners conceal 
themselves to shoot the large gulls which coast up and 
down a-fishing, for these are considered good to eat. 
We found some large clams, of the species Mactra 
solidissima, which the storm had torn up from the 
bottom, and cast ashore. I selected one of the largest, 
about six inches in length, and carried it along, think- 
ing to try an experiment on it. We soon after met a 
wrecker, with a grapple and a rope, who said that he 
was looking for tow cloth, which had made part of 
the cargo of the ship Franklin, which was wrecked 
here in the spring, at which time nine or ten Hves were 
lost. The reader may remember this wreck, from the 
circumstance that a letter was found in the captain's 
valise, which washed ashore, directing him to wreck the 
vessel before he got to America, and from the trial 
which took place in consequence. The wrecker said 
that tow cloth was still cast up in such storms as this. 
He also told us that the clam which I had was the 
sea-clam, or hen, and was good to eat. We took our 



70 CAPE COD. 

nooning under a sand-hill, covered with beach-grass, 
in a dreary little hollow, on the top of the bank, while 
it alternately rained and shined. There, having 
reduced some damp drift-wood, which I had picked up 
on the shore, to shavings with my knife, I kindled a 
fire with a match and some paper, and cooked my 
clam on the embers for my dinner; for breakfast was 
commonly the only meal which I took in a house on 
this excursion. When the clam was done, one valve 
held the meat and the other the liquor. Though it 
was very tough, I found it sweet and savory, and ate 
the whole with a relish. Indeed, with the addition 
of a cracker or two, it would have been a bountiful 
dinner. I noticed that the shells were such as I had 
seen in the sugar-kit at home. Tied to a stick, they 
formerly made the Indian's hoe hereabouts. 

At length, by mid-afternoon, after we had had two 
or three rainbows over the sea, the showers ceased, 
and the heavens gradually cleared up, though the 
wind still blowed as hard and the breakers ran as high 
as before. Keeping on, we soon after came to a 
Charity-house, which we looked into to see how the 
shipwrecked mariner might fare. Far away in some 
desolate hollow by the sea-side, just within the bank, 
stands a lonely building on piles driven into the sand, 
with a sUght nail put through the staple, which a freez- 
ing man can bend, with some straw, perchance, on 
the floor on which he may he, or which he may burn 
in the fireplace to keep him ahve. Perhaps this hut 
has never been required to shelter a shipwrecked man, 
and the benevolent person who promised to inspect it 
annually, to see that the straw and matches are here, 
and that the boards will keep off the wind, has grown 



THE BEACH. 71 

remiss and thinks that storms and shipwrecks are 
over; and this very night a perishing crew may pry 
open its door with their numbed fingers and leave half 
their number dead here by morning. When I thought 
what must be the condition of the families which 
alone would ever occupy or had occupied them, what 
must have been the tragedy of the winter evenings 
spent by human beings around their hearths, these 
houses, though they were meant for human dwellings, 
did not look cheerful to me. They appeared but 
a stage to the grave. The gulls flew around 
and screamed over them; the roar of the ocean 
in storms, and the lapse of its waves in calms, 
alone resounds through them, all dark and empty 
within, year in, year out, except, perchance, on one 
memorable night. Houses of entertainment for 
shipwrecked men ! What kind of sailors' homes 
were they? 

"Each hut," says the author of the "Description of 
the Eastern Coast of the County of Barnstable," 
"stands on piles, is eight feet long, eight feet wide, and 
seven feet high ; a sliding door is on the south, a slid- 
ing shutter on the west, and a pole, rising fifteen feet 
above the top of the building, on the east. Within it 
is supplied either with straw or hay, and is further 
accommodated with a bench." They have varied 
Httle from this model now. There are similar huts 
at the Isle of Sable and Anticosti, on the north, and 
how far soutli along the coast I know not. It is 
pathetic to read the minute and faithful directions 
which he gives to seamen who may be wrecked on this 
coast, to guide them to the nearest Charity-house, or 
other shelter, for, as is said of Eastham, though there 



72 



CAPE COD. 



are a few houses within a mile of the shore, yet "in a 
snow-storm, which rages here with excessive fury, it 
would be almost impossible to discover them either 
by night or by day." You hear their imaginary guide 
thus marshalhng, cheering, directing the dripping, 
shivering, freezing troop along; ''at the entrance of 
this valley the sand has gathered, so that at present a 
Uttle climbing is necessary. Passing over several 
fences and taking heed not to enter the wood on the 
right hand, at the distance of three quarters of a mile 
a house is to be found. This house stands on the 
south side of the road, and not far from it on the south 
is Pamet River, which runs from east to west through 
body of salt marsh." To him cast ashore in East- 
ham, he says, "The meeting-house is without 
a steeple, but it may be distinguished from the 
dweUing-houses near it by its situation, which is 
between two small groves of locusts, one on the 
south and one on the north, — that on the south 
being three times as long as the other. About a mile 
and a quarter from the hut, west by north, appear 
the top and arms of a windmill." And so on for 
many pages. 

We did not learn whether these houses had been the 
means of saving any Hves, though this writer says, of 
one erected at the head of Stout's Creek, in Truro, 
that "it was built in an improper manner, having a 
chimney in it; and was placed on a spot where no 
beach -grass grew. The strong winds blew the sand 
from its foundation, and the weight of the chimney 
brought it to the ground; so that in January of the 
present year [1802] it was entirely demolished. This 
event took place about six weeks before the Brutus 



THE BEACH, 73 

was cast away. If it had remained, it is probable 
that the whole of the unfortunate crew of that ship 
would have been saved, as they gained the shore 
a few rods only from the spot where the hut had 
stood," 

This "Charity-house," as the wrecker called it, 
this "Humane house," as some call it, that is, the one to 
which we first came, had neither window nor shding 
shutter, nor clapboards, nor paint. As we have said, 
there was a rusty nail put through the staple. How- 
ever, as we wished to get an idea of a Humane house, 
and we hoped that we should never have a better 
opportunity, we put our eyes, by turns, to a knot-hole 
in the door, and, after long looking, without seeing, 
into the dark, — not knowing how many shipwrecked 
men's bones we might see at last, looking with the 
eye of faith, knowing that, though to him that knock- 
eth it may not always be opened, yet to him that 
looketh long enough through a knot-hole the inside 
shall be visible, — for we had had some practice at 
looking inward, — by steadily keeping our other ball 
covered from the light meanwhile, putting the outward 
world behind us, ocean and land, and the beach, — 
till the pupil became enlarged and collected the rays of 
light that were wandering in that dark (for the pupil 
shall be enlarged by looking; there never was so 
dark a night but a faithful and patient eye, however 
small, might at last prevail over it), — after all this, I 
say, things began to take shape to our vision, — if we 
may use this expression where there was nothing but 
emptiness, — and we obtained the long-wished-for 
insight. Though we thought at first that it was a 
hopeless case, after several minutes' steady exercise 



74 CAPE COD. 

of the divine faculty, our prospects began decidedly to 
brighten, and we were ready to exclaim with the blind 
bard of "Paradise Lost and Regained," — 

" Hail, holy Light ! ofifspring of Heaven first born, 
Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam, 
May I express thee unblamed?" 

A little longer, and a chimney rushed red on our 
sight. In short, when our vision had grown familiar 
with the darkness, we discovered that there were some 
stones and some loose wads of wool on the floor, and 
an empty fireplace at the further end; but it was not 
supplied with matches, or straw, or hay, that we could 
see, nor "accommodated with a bench." Indeed, it 
was the wreck of all cosmical beauty there within. 

Turning our backs on the outward world, we thus 
looked through the knot-hole into the Humane house, 
into the very bowels of mercy ; and for bread we found 
a stone. It was literally a great cry (of sea-mews 
outside), and a little wool. However, we were glad to 
sit outside, under the lee of the Humane house, to 
escape the piercing wind ; and there we thought how 
cold is charity ! how inhumane humanity ! This, 
then, is what charity hides ! Virtues antique and far 
away with ever a rusty nail over the latch ; and very 
difficult to keep in repair, withal, it is so uncertain 
whether any will ever gain the beach near you. So 
we shivered round about, not being able to get into it, 
ever and anon looking through the knot-hole into that 
night without a star, until we concluded that it was 
not a humane house at all, but a sea-side box, now 
shut up, belonging to some of the family of Night or 
Chaos, where they spent their summers by the sea, 



THE BEACH. 75 

for the sake of the sea breeze, and that it was not 
])roper for us to be prying into their concerns. 

My companion had declared before this that I 
had not a particle of sentiment, in rather absolute 
terms, to my astonishment; but I suspect he meant 
that my legs did not ache just then, though I am not 
wholly a stranger to that sentiment. But I did not 
intend this for a sentimental journey. 



V. 

THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN. 

Having walked about eight miles since we struck 
the beach, and passed the boundary between Wellfleet 
and Truro, a stone post in the sand, — for even this 
sand comes under the jurisdiction of one town or 
another, — we turned inland over barren hills and 
valleys, whither the sea, for some reason, did not 
follow us, and, tracing up a Hollow, discovered two or 
three sober-looking houses within half a mile, un- 
commonly near the eastern coast. Their garrets 
were apparently so full of chambers, that their roofs 
could hardly lie down straight, and we did not doubt 
that there was room for us there. Houses near the 
sea are generally low and broad. These were a story 
and a half high; but if you merely counted the win- 
dows in their gable-ends, you would think that there 
were many stories more, or, at any rate, that the half- 
story was the only one thought worthy of being illus- 
trated. The great number of windows in the ends 
of the houses, and their irregularity in size and posi- 
tion, here and elsewhere on the Cape, struck us 
agreeably, — as if each of the various occupants who 
had their cunabula behind had punched a hole where 
his necessities required it, and, according to his size and 
stature, without regard to outside effect. There 

76 



THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN. y'J 

were windows for the grown folks, and windows for the 
children, — three or four apiece; as a certain man 
had a large hole cut in his barn-door for the cat, and 
another smaller one for the kitten. Sometimes they 
were so low under the eaves that I thought they must 
have perforated the plate beam for another apart- 
ment, and I noticed some which were triangular, to fit 
that part more exactly. The ends of the houses had 
thus as many muzzles as a revolver, and, if the inhabit- 
ants have the same habit of staring out the windows 
that some of our neighbors have, a traveller must 
stand a small chance with them. 

Generally, the old-fashioned and unpainted houses 
on the Cape looked more comfortable, as well as 
picturesque, than the modem and more pretending 
ones, which were less in harmony with the scenery, 
and less firmly planted. 

These houses were on the shores of a chain of ponds, 
seven in number, the source of a small stream called 
Herring River, which empties into the Bay. There 
are many Herring Rivers on the Cape; they will, 
perhaps, be more numerous than herrings soon. 
We knocked at the door of the first house, but its 
inhabitants were all gone away. In the meanwhile, 
we saw the occupants of the next one looking out the 
window at us, and before we reached it an old woman 
came out and fastened the door of her bulkhead, and 
went in again. Nevertheless, we did not hesitate to 
knock at her door, when a grizzly-looking man ap- 
peared, whom we took to be sixty or seventy years old. 
He asked us, at first, suspiciously, where we were 
from, and what our business was; to which we re- 
turned plain answers. 



yS CAPE COD. 

"How far is Concord from Boston?" he inquired. 

"Twenty miles by railroad." 

"Twenty miles by railroad," he repeated. 

"Didn't you ever hear of Concord of Revolutionary 
fame?" 

"Didn't I ever hear of Concord? Why, I heard the 
guns fire at the battle of Bunker Hill. [They hear 
the sound of heavy cannon across the Bay.] I am 
almost ninety; I am eighty-eight year old. I was 
fourteen year old at the time of Concord Fight, — 
and where were you then?" 

We were obliged to confess that we were not in the 
fight. 

"Well, walk in, we'll leave it to the women," said he. 

So we walked in, surprised, and sat down, an old 
woman taking our hats and bundles, and the old man 
continued, drawing up to the large, old-fashioned 
fireplace, — 

"I am a poor good-for-nothing crittur, as Isaiah 
says; I am all broken down this year. I am under 
petticoat government here." 

The family consisted of the old man, his wife, and 
his daughter, who appeared nearly as old as her 
mother, a fool, her son (a brutish-looking, middle-aged 
man, with a prominent lower face, who was standing 
by the hearth when we entered, but immediately went 
out), and a little boy of ten. 

While my companion talked with the women, I 
talked with the old man. They said that he was old 
and foolish, but he was evidently too knowing for them. 

"These women," said he to me, "are both of them 
poor good-for-nothing critturs. This one is my wife. 
I married her sixty-four years ago. She is eighty-four 



THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN. 79 

years old, and as deaf as an adder, and the other is not 
much better." 

He thought well of the Bible, or at least he spohc 
well, and did not think ill, of it, for that would not have 
been prudent for a man of his age. He said that he 
had read it attentively for many years, and he had 
much of it at his tongue's end. He seemed deeply 
impressed with a sense of his own nothingness, and 
would repeatedly exclaim, — 

"I am a nothing. What I gather from my Bible is 
just this: that man is a poor good-for-nothing crittur, 
and everything is just as God sees fit and disposes." 

"May I ask your name?" I said. 

"Yes," he answered, "I am not ashamed to tell my 

name. My name is . My great-grandfather 

came over from England and settled here." 

He was an old Wellfleet oysterman, who had ac- 
quired a competency in that business, and had sons 
still engaged in it. 

Nearly all the oyster shops and stands in Massa- 
chusetts, I am told, are suppHed and kept by natives of 
Wellfleet, and a part of this town is still called Billings- 
gate from the oysters having been formerly planted 
there; but the native oysters are said to have died in 
1770. Various causes are assigned for this, such as a 
ground frost, the carcasses of black -fish, kept to rot 
in the harbor, and the like, but the most common 
account of the matter is, — and I find that a similar 
superstition with regard to the disappearance of fishes 
exists almost everywhere, — that when Wellfleet be- 
gan to quarrel with the neighboring towns about the 
right to gather them, yellow specks appeared in them, 
and Providence caused them to disappear. A few 



80 CAPE COD, 

years ago sixty thousand bushels were annually brought 
from the South and planted in the harbor of Wellfleet 
till they attained "the proper rehsh of Billingsgate "; 
but now they are imported commonly full-grown, and 
laid down near their markets, at Boston and elsewhere, 
where the water, being a mixture of salt and fresh, 
suits them better. The business was said to be still 
good and improving. 

The old man said that the oysters were liable to 
freeze in the winter, if planted too high; but if it 
were not "so cold as to strain their eyes" they were 
not injured. The inhabitants of New Brunswick 
have noticed that "ice will not form over an oyster- 
bed, unless the cold is very intense indeed, and when 
the bays are frozen over the oyster-beds are easily 
discovered by the water above them remaining un- 
frozen, or as the French residents say, degHe.''^ Our 
host said that they kept them in cellars all winter. 

"Without anything to eat or drink?" I asked. 

"Without anything to eat or drink," he answered. 

"Can the oysters move?" 

"Just as much as my shoe." 

But when I caught him saying that they "bedded 
themselves down in the sand, flat side up, round side 
down," I told him that my shoe could not do that, with- 
out the aid of my foot in it ; at which he said that they 
merely settled down as they grew; if put down in a 
square they would be found so; but the clam could 
move quite fast. I have since been told by oystermen 
of Long Island, where the oyster is still indigenous 
and abundant, that they are found in large masses 
attached to the parent in their midst, and are so taken 
up with their tongs; in which case, they say, the age 



THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN- 8 1 

of the young proves that there could have been no 
motion for five or six years at least. And Buckland 
in his Curiosities of Natural History (page 50) says: 
"An oyster who has once taken up his position and 
fixed himself when quite young, can never make a 
change. Oysters, nevertheless, that have not fixed 
themselves, but remain loose at the bottom of the sea, 
have the power of locomotion ; they open their shells 
to their fullest extent, and then suddenly contracting 
them, the expulsion of the water forwards gives a 
motion backwards. A fisherman at Guernsey told 
me that he had frequently seen oysters moving in this 
way." 

Some still entertain the question "whether the oys- 
ter was indigenous in Massachusetts Bay," and whether 
Wellfleet harbor was a "natural habitat" of this fish; 
but, to say nothing of the testimony of old oystermen, 
which, I think, is quite conclusive, though the native 
oyster may now be extinct there, I saw that their 
shells, opened by the Indians, were strewn all over the 
Cape. Indeed, the Cape was at first thickly settled 
by Indians on account of the abundance of these and 
other fish. We saw many traces of their occupancy 
after this, in Truro, near Great Hollow, and at High- 
Head, near East Harbor River, — oysters, clams, 
cockles, and other shells, mingled with ashes and the 
bones of deer and other quadrupeds. I picked up 
half a dozen arrow-heads, and in an hour or two could 
have filled my pockets with them. The Indians lived 
about the edges of the swamps, then probably in some 
instances ponds, for shelter and water. Moreover, 
Champlain in the edition of his "Voyages" printed in 
1613, says that in the year 1606 he and Poitrincourt 



82 CAPE COD. 

explored a harbor (Barnstable Harbor?) in the south- 
erly part of what is now called Massachusetts Bay, in 
latitude 42°, about five leagues south, one point west of 
Cap Blanc (Cape Cod), and there they found many 
good oysters, and they named it "/e Port aux Huistres " 
(Oyster Harbor). In one edition of his map (1632), 
the "2?. aux Escailles " is drawn emptying into the same 
part of the bay, and on the map ^'Novi Belgii," in 
Ogilby's America (1670), the words ''Port aux 
Huistres'' are placed against the same place. Also 
WilHam Wood, who left New England in 1633, speaks, 
in his "New England's Prospect," published in 1634, 
of "a great oyster-bank" in Charles River, and of 
another in the Mistick, each of which obstructed the 
navigation of its river. "The oysters," says he, "be 
great ones in form of a shoehorn ; some be a foot long; 
these breed on certain banks that are bare every 
spring tide. This fish without the shell is so big, that 
it must admit of a division before you can well get it 
into your mouth." Oysters are still found there. 
(Also, see Thomas Morton's New English Canaan, 
page 90.) 

Our host told us that the sea-clam, or hen, was not 
easily obtained; it was raked up, but never on the 
Atlantic side, only cast ashore there in small quantities 
in storms. The fisherman sometimes wades in water 
several feet deep, and thrusts a pointed stick into the 
sand before him. When this enters between the valves 
of a clam, he closes them on it, and is drawn out. It 
has been known to catch and hold coot and teal which 
were preying on it. I chanced to be on the bank of 
the Acushnet at New Bedford one day since this, 
watching some ducks, when a man informed me that. 



THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN. 83 

having let out his young ducks to seek their food amid 
the samphire (Salicornia) and other weeds along the 
river-side at low tide that morning, at length he noticed 
that one remained stationary, amid the weeds, some- 
thing preventing it from following the others, and 
going to it he found its foot tightly shut in a quahog's 
shell. He took up both together, carried them to his 
home, and his wife opening the shell with a knife 
released the duck and cooked the quahog. The old 
man said that the great clams were good to eat, but 
that they always took out a certain part which was 
poisonous, before they cooked them. ''People said it 
would kill a cat." I did not tell him that I had eaten 
a large one entire that afternoon, but began to think 
that I was tougher than a cat. He stated that pedlers 
came round there, and sometimes tried to sell the 
women folks a skimmer, but he told them that their 
women had got a better skimmer than they could 
make, in the shell of their clams; it was shaped just 
right for this purpose. — They call them ''skim-alls" 
in some places. He also said that the sun-squawl was 
poisonous to handle, and when the sailors came across 
it, they did not meddle with it, but heaved it out of 
their way. I told him that I had handled it that 
afternoon, and had felt no ill effects as yet. But he 
said it made the hands itch, especially if they had 
previously been scratched, or if I put it into my bosom, 
I should find out what it was. 

He informed us that no ice ever formed on the back 
side of the Cape, or not more than once in a century, 
and but little snow lay there, it being either absorbed 
or blown or washed away. Sometimes in winter, 
when the tide was down, the beach was frozen, and 



84 CAPE COD. 

afforded a hard road up the back side for some 
thirty miles, as smooth as a floor. One winter when 
he was a boy, he and his father "took right out into 
the back side before dayhght, and walked to Province- 
town and back to dinner." 

When I asked what they did with all that barren - 
looking land, where I saw so few cultivated fields, — 
"Nothing," he said. 

"Then why fence your fields?" 

"To keep the sand from blowing and covering up 
the whole." 

"The yellow sand," said he, "has some life in it, 
but the white Httle or none." 

When, in answer to his questions, I told him that I 
was a surveyor, he said that they who surveyed his 
farm were accustomed, where the ground was uneven, 
to loop up each chain as high as their elbows; that 
was the allowance they made, and he wished to know 
if I could tell him why they did not come out accord- 
ing to his deed, or twice alike. He seemed to have 
more respect for surveyors of the old school, which I 
did not wonder at. "King George the Third," 
said he, "laid out a road four rods wide and straight 
the whole length of the Cape," but where it was now 
he could not tell. 

This story of the surveyors reminded me of a Long- 
Islander, who once, when I had made ready to jump 
from the bow of his boat to the shore, and he thought 
that I underrated the distance and would fall short, — 
though I found afterward that he judged of the elas- 
ticity of my joints by his own, — told me that when he 
came to a brook which he wanted to get over, he held 
up one leg, and then, if his foot appeared to cover any 



THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN. 85 

part of the opposite bank, he knew that he could jump 
it. **Why," I told him, **to say nothing of the 
Mississippi, and other small watery streams, I could 
blot out a star with my foot, but I would not engage to 
jump that distance," and asked how he knew when he 
had got his leg at the right elevation. But he regarded 
his legs as no less accurate than a pair of screw dividers 
or an ordinary quadrant, and appeared to have a pain- 
ful recollection of every degree and minute in the arc 
which they described; and he would have had me 
believe that there was a kind of hitch in hi§ hip-joint 
which answered the purpose. I suggested that he 
should connect his two ankles by a string of the proper 
length, which should be the chord of an arc, measur- 
ing his jumping ability on horizontal surfaces, — 
assuming one leg to be a perpendicular to the plane of 
the horizon, which, however, may have been too bold 
an assumption in this case. Nevertheless, this was a 
kind of geometry in the legs which it interested me to 
hear of. 

Our host took pleasure in telling us the names of 
the ponds, most of which we could see from his win- 
dows, and making us repeat them after him, to see if we 
had got them right. They were Gull Pond, the largest 
and a very handsome one, clear and deep, and more 
than a mile in circumference, Newcomb's, Swett's, 
Slough, Horse-Leech, Round, and Herring Ponds, all 
connected at high water, if I do not mistake. The 
coast-surveyors had come to him for their names, 
and he told them of one which they had not detected. 
He said that they were not so high as formerly. 
There was an earthquake about four years before he 
was bom, which cracked the pans of the ponds, which 



S6 CAPE COD. 

were of iron, and caused them to settle. I did not 
remember to have read of this. Innumerable gulls 
used to resort to them ; but the large gulls were now 
very scarce, for, as he said, the English robbed their 
nests far in the north, where they breed. He remem- 
bered well when gulls were taken in the gull-house, and 
when small birds were killed by means of a frying- 
pan and fire at night. His father once lost a valuable 
horse from this cause. A party from Wellfleet having 
lighted their fire for this purpose, one dark night, on 
Billingsgate Island, twenty horses which were pastured 
there, and this colt among them, being frightened by it, 
and endeavoring in the dark to cross the passage which 
separated them from the neighboring beach, and which 
was then fordable at low tide, were all swept out to sea 
and drowned. I observed that many horses were still 
turned out to pasture all summer on the islands and 
beaches in Wellfleet, Eastham, and Orleans, as a kind 
of common. He also described the kiUingof what he 
called "wild hens" here, after they had gone to roost 
in the woods, when he was a boy. Perhaps they were 
"Prairie hens" (pinnated grouse). 

He liked the Beach-pea {Lathyrus maritimus) , 
cooked green, as well as the cultivated. He had seen 
it growing very abundantly in Newfoundland, where 
also the inhabitants ate them, but he had never been 
able to obtain any ripe for seed. We read, under the 
head of Chatham, that "in 1555, during a time of 
great scarcity, the people about Orford, in Sussex 
(England) were preserved from perishing by eating 
the seeds of this plant, which grew there in great abun- 
dance on the sea-coast. Cows, horses, sheep, and 
But the writer who quoted this could 



THE IVELLFLEET OYSTERMAN, Sj 

not learn that they had ever been used in Barnstable 
County. 

He had been a voyager, then? O, he had been 
about the world in his day. He once considered him- 
self a pilot for all our coast ; but now they had changed 
the names so he might be bothered. 

He gave us to taste what he called the Summer 
Sweeting, a pleasant apple which he raised, and fre- 
quently grafted from, but had never seen growing else- 
where, except once, — three trees on Newfoundland, 
or at the Bay of Chaleur, I forget which, as he was 
sailing by. He was sure that he could tell the tree at a 
distance. 

At length the fool, whom my companion called the 
wizard, came in, muttering between his teeth, ''Damn 
book-pedlers, — all the time talking about books. 
Better do something. Damn 'em. I'll shoot 'em. 
Got a doctor down here. Damn him, I'll get a gun 
and shoot him"; never once holding up his head. 
Whereat the old man stood up and said in a loud 
voice, as if he was accustomed to command, and this 
was not the first time he had been obliged to exert his 
authority there: "John, go sit down, mind your busi- 
ness, — we 've heard you talk before, — precious little 
you'll do, — your bark is worse than your bite." 
But, without minding, John muttered the same gibber- 
ish over again, and then sat down at the table which 
the old folks had left. He ate all there was on it, 
and then turned to the apples, which his aged mother 
was paring, that she might give her guests some apple- 
sauce for breakfast, but she drew them away and sent 
him off. 

When I approached this house the next summer, 



S8 CAPE COD. 

over the desolate hills between it and the shore, which 
are worthy to have been the birthplace of Ossian, I 
saw the wizard in the midst of a cornfield on the hill- 
side, but, as usual, he loomed so strangely, that I mis- 
took him for a scarecrow. 

This was the merriest old man that we had ever 
seen, and one of the best preser\^ed. His style of 
conversation was coarse and plain enough to have 
suited Rabelais. He would have made a good 
Panurge. Or rather he was a sober Silenus, and 
we were the boys Chromis and Mnasilus, who Hstened 
to his story. 

" Not by Haemonian hills the Thracian bard, 
Nor awful Phoebus was on Pindus heard 
With deeper silence or with more regard." 

There was a strange mingling of past and present 
in his conversation, for he had lived under King 
George, and might have remembered when Napoleon 
and the moderns generally were born. He said that 
one day, when the troubles between the Colonies and 
the mother country first broke out, as he, a boy of 
fifteen, was pitching hay out of a cart, one Doane, an 
old Tory, who was talking with his father, a good 
Whig, said to him, "Why, Uncle Bill, you might as 
well undertake to pitch that pond into the ocean with 
a pitchfork, as for the Colonies to undertake to gain 
their independence." He remembered well General 
Washington, and how he rode his horse along the 
streets of Boston, and he stood up to show us how he 
looked. 

*'He was a r — a — ther large and portly-looking 
man, a manly and resolute-looking officer, with a pretty 



THE IVELLFLEET OYSTERMAN. 89 

good leg as he sat on his horse." — "There, I'll tell 
you, this was the way with Washington." Then he 
jumped up again, and bowed gracefully to right and 
left, making show as if he were waving his hat. Said 
he, ^^That was Washington." 

He told us many anecdotes of the Revolution, and 
was much pleased when we told him that we had read 
the same in history, and that his account agreed with 
the written. 

"O," he said, "I know, I know! I was a young 
fellow of sixteen, with my ears wide open; and a 
fellow of that age, you know, is pretty wide awake, and 
likes to know everything that 's going on. O, I 
know!" 

He told us the story of the wreck of the Franklin, 
which took place there the previous spring: how a 
boy came to his house early in the morning to know 
whose boat that was by the shore, for there was a 
vessel in distress, and he, being an old man, first ate 
his breakfast, and then walked over to the top of the 
hill by the shore, and sat down there, having found a 
comfortable seat, to see the ship wrecked. She was 
on the bar, only a quarter of a mile from him, and still 
nearer to the men on the beach, who had got a boat 
ready, but could render no assistance on account of 
the breakers, for there was a pretty high sea running. 
There were the passengers all crowded together in the 
forward part of the ship, and some were getting out of 
the cabin windows and were drawn on deck by the 
others. 

*'I saw the captain get out his boat," said he; ''he 
had one little one; and then they jumped into it 
one after another, down as straight as an arrow. 



90 CAPE COD. 

I counted them. There were nine. One was a woman, 
and she jumped as straight as any of them. Then 
they shoved off. The sea took them back, one wave 
went over them, and when they came up there were 
six still clinging to the boat; I counted them. The 
next wave turned the boat bottom upward, and emp- 
tied them all out. None of them ever came ashore 
alive. There were the rest of them all crowded 
together on the forecastle, the other parts of the ship 
being under water. They had seen all that happened 
to the boat. At length a heavy sea separated the 
forecastle from the rest of the wreck, and set it inside 
of the worst breaker, and the boat was able to reach 
them, and it saved all that were left, but one woman." 

He also told us of the steamer Cambria's getting 
aground on his shore a few months before we were 
there, and of her English passengers who roamed 
over his grounds, and who, he said, thought the pros- 
pect from the high hill by the shore "the most dehght- 
some they had ever seen," and also of the pranks 
which the ladies played with his scoop-net in the ponds. 
He spoke of these travellers with their purses full of 
guineas, just as our provincial fathers used to speak of 
British bloods in the time of King George the Third. 

Quid loquar? Why repeat what he told us? 

"Aut Scyllam Nisi, quam fama secuta est, 
Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris, 
Dulichias vex^sse rates, et gurgite in alto 
Ah timidos nautas canibus lacerasse marinis?" 

In the course of the evening I began to feel the po- 
tency of the clam which I had eaten, and I was obliged 
to confess to our host that I was no tougher than the 
cat he told of; but he answered, that he was a plain- 



THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN. 9 1 

spoken man, and he could tell me that it was all 
imagination. At any rate, it proved an emetic m 
my case, and I was made quite sick by it for a short 
time, while he laughed at my expense. I was pleased 
to read afterward, in Mourt's Relation of the landing 
of the Pilgrims in Provincetown Harbor, these words: 
"We found great muscles (the old editor says that 
they were undoubtedly sea-clams) and very fat and 
full of sea-pearl; but we could not eat them, for they 
made us all sick that did eat, as well sailors as^ pas- 
sengers, ... but they were soon well again." It 
brought me nearer to the Pilgrims to be thus reminded 
by a similar experience that I was so Uke theni. 
Moreover, it was a valuable confirmation of their 
story, and I am prepared now to believe every word of 
Mourt's Relation. I was also pleased to find that 
man and the clam lay still at the same angle to one 
another. But I did not notice sea-pearl. Like 
Cleopatra, I must have swallowed it. I have since 
dug these clams on a flat in the Bay and observed 
them. They could squirt full ten feet before the 
wind, as appeared by the marks of the drops on the 

sand. 

' ' Now I 'm going to ask you a question, said the old 
man, "and I don't know as you can tell me; but you 
are a learned man, and I never had any learning, only 
what I got by natur." — It was in vain that we re- 
minded him that he could quote Josephus to our con- 
fusion. — "I 've thought, if I ever met a learned man I 
should hke to ask him this question. Can you tell 
me how Axy is spelt, and what it means? Axy,'' 
says he; "there's a girl over here is named Axy. 
Now what is it? What does it mean? Is it Scrip- 



92 CAPE COD. 

ture? I 've read my Bible twenty-five years over and 
over, and I never came across it." 

''Did you read it twenty -five years for this object?" 
I asked. 

"Well, how is it spelt? Wife, how is it spelt?" 

She said: ''It is in the Bible; I've seen it." 

"Well, how do you spell it?" 

"I don't know. A c h, ach, s e h, seh, — Achseh." 

"Does that spell Axy? Well, do you know what 
it means?" asked he, turning to me. 

"No," I replied, "I never heard the sound be- 
fore." 

"There was a schoolmaster down here once, and 
they asked him what it meant, and he said it had no 
more meaning than a bean-pole." 

I told him that I held the same opinion with the 
schoolmaster. I had been a schoolmaster myself, and 
had had strange names to deal with. I also heard of 
such names as Zoheth, Beriah, Amaziah, Bethuel, 
and Shearjashub, hereabouts. 

At length the little boy, who had a seat quite in the 
chimney-corner, took off his stockings and shoes, 
warmed his feet, and having had his sore leg freshly 
salved, went off to bed ; then the fool made bare his 
knotty -looking feet and legs, and followed him ; and 
finally the old man exposed his calves also to our gaze. 
We had never had the good fortune to see an old man's 
legs before, and were surprised to find them fair and 
plump as an infant's, and we thought that he took a 
pride in exhibiting them. He then proceeded to make 
preparations for retiring, discoursing meanwhile with 
Panurgic plainness of speech on the ills to which old 
humanity is subject. We were a rare haul for him. 



THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN. 93 

He could commonly get none but ministers to talk to, 
though sometimes ten of them at once, and he was glad 
to meet some of the laity at leisure. The evening was 
not long enough for him. As I had been sick, the old 
lady asked if I would not go to bed, — it was getting 
late for old people; but the old man, who had not yet 
done his stories, said, ''You ain't particular, are you?" 

"O no," said I, "I am in no hurry. I believe I 
have weathered the Clam cape." 

''They are good," said he; "I wish I had some of 
them now." 

''They never hurt me," said the old lady. 

"But then you took out the part that killed a cat," 
said I. 

At last we cut him short in the midst of his stories, 
which he promised to resume in the morning. Yet, 
after all, one of the old ladies who came into our room 
in the night to fasten the fire-board, which rattled, as 
she went out took the precaution to fasten us in. Old 
women are by nature more suspicious than old men. 
However, the winds howled around the house, and 
made the fire-boards as well as the casements rattle 
well that night. It was probably a windy night for 
any locahty, but we could not distinguish the roar 
which was proper to the ocean from that which was 
due to the wind alone. 

The sounds which the ocean makes must be very 
significant and interesting to those who five near it. 
When I was leaving the shore at this place the next 
summer, and had got a quarter of a mile distant, 
ascending a hill, I was startled by a sudden, loud 
sound from the sea, as if a large steamer were letting 
off steam by the shore, so that I caught my breath and 



94 CAPE COD. 

felt my blood run cold for an instant, and I turned 
about, expecting to see one of the Atlantic steamers 
thus far out of her course, but there was nothing 
unusual to be seen. There was a low bank at the 
entrance of the Hollow, between me and the ocean, 
and suspecting that I might have risen into another 
stratum of air in ascending the hill, — which had 
wafted to me only the ordinary roar of the sea, — I 
immediately descended again, to see if I lost hearing of 
it; but, without regard to my ascending or descend- 
ing, it died away in a minute or two, and yet there was 
scarcely any wind all the while. The old man said 
that this was what they called the "rut," a peculiar 
roar of the sea before the wind changes, which, how- 
ever, he could not account for. He thought that he 
could tell all about the weather from the sounds which 
the sea made. 

Old Josselyn, who came to New England in 1638, 
has it among his weather-signs, that **the resounding 
of the sea from the shore, and murmuring of the 
winds in the woods, without apparent wind, sheweth 
wind to follow." 

Being on another part of the coast one night since 
this, I heard the roar of the surf a mile distant, and the 
inhabitants said it was a sign that the wind would 
work round east, and we should have rainy weather. 
The ocean was heaped up somewhere at the east- 
ward, and this roar was occasioned by its effort to 
preserve its equilibrium, the wave reaching the shore 
before the wind. Also the captain of a packet between 
this country and England told me that he sometimes 
met with a wave on the Atlantic coming against the 
wind, perhaps in a calm sea, which indicated that at a 



THE IVELLFLEET OYSTERMAX. 95 

distance the wind was blowing from an oj)}X)site 
quarter, but tiie undulation had travelled faster than 
it. Sailors tell of "tide-rips" and "ground-swells," 
which they suppose to have been occasioned by hurri- 
canes and earthquakes, and to have travelled many 
hundred, and sometimes even two or three thousand 
miles. 

Before sunrise the next morning they let us out 
again, and I ran over to the beach to see the sun come 
out of the ocean. The old woman of eighty-four 
winters was already out in the cold morning wind, 
bareheaded, tripping about like a young girl, and 
driving up the cow to milk." She got the breakfast 
with despatch, and without noise or bustle; and 
meanwhile the old man resumed his stories, standing 
before us, who were sitting, with his back to the chim- 
ney, and ejecting his tobacco juice right and left into 
the fire behind him, without regard to the various 
dishes which were there preparing. At breakfast 
we had eels, buttermilk cake, cold bread, green beans, 
doughnuts, and tea. The old man talked a steady 
stream; and when his wife told him he had better 
eat his breakfast, he said: "Don't hurry me; I have 
lived too long to be hurried." I ate of the apple- 
sauce and the doughnuts, which I thought had sus- 
tained the least detriment from the old man's shots, 
but my companion refused the apple-sauce, and ate of 
the hot cake and green beans, which had appeared to 
him to occupy the safest part of the hearth. But on 
comparing notes afterward, I told him that the butter- 
milk cake was particularly exposed, and I saw how it 
suffered repeatedly, and therefore I avoided it; but 
he declared that, however that might be, he witnessed 



96 CAPE COD. 

that the apple-sauce was seriously injured, and had 
therefore decHned that. After breakfast we looked at 
his clock, which was out of order, and oiled it with 
some "hen's grease," for want of sweet oil, for he 
scarcely could beheve that we were. not tinkers or 
pedlers ; meanwhile he told a story about visions, which 
had reference to a crack in the clock-case made by frost 
one night. He was curious to know to what religious 
sect we belonged. He said that he had been to hear 
thirteen kinds of preaching in one month, when he 
was young, but he did not join any of them, — he 
stuck to his Bible. There was nothing hke any of 
them in his Bible. While I was shaving in the next 
room, I heard him ask my companion to what sect he 
belonged, to which he answered : — 

"O, I belong to the Universal Brotherhood." 
"What's that?" he asked, "Sonso' Temperance?" 
Finally, fiUing our pockets with doughnuts, which he 
was pleased to find that we called by the same name 
that he did, and paying for our entertainment, we took 
our departure ; but he followed us out of doors, and 
made us tell him the names of the vegetables which he 
had raised from seeds that came out of the Franklin. 
They were cabbage, broccoU, and parsley. As I had 
asked him the names of so many things, he tried me 
in turn with all the plants which grew in his garden, 
both wild and cultivated. It was about half an acre, 
which he cultivated wholly himself. Besides the 
common garden vegetables, there were Yellow-Dock, 
Lemon Balm, Hyssop, Gill-go-over-the-ground, 
Mouse-ear, Chick-weed, Roman Wormwood, Ele- 
campane, and other plants. As we stood there, I saw 
a fish-hawk stoop to pick a fish out of his pond. 



THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN. 97 

''There," said I, "he has got a fish." 

"Well," said the old man, who was looking all the 
while, but could see nothing, "he didn't dive, he just 
wet his claws." 

And, sure enough, he did not this time, though it is 
said that they often do, but he merely stooped low 
enough to pick him out with his talons; but as he 
bore his shining prey over the bushes, it fell to the 
ground, and we did not see that he recovered it. That 
is not their practice. 

Thus, having had another crack with the old man, 
he standing bareheaded under the eaves, he directed 
us "athwart the fields," and we took to the beach again 
for another day, it being now late in the morning. 

It was but a day or two after this that the safe of the 
Provincetown Bank was broken open and robbed by 
two men from the interior, and we learned that our 
hospitable entertainers did at least transiently harbor 
the suspicion that we were the men. 



VI. 

THE BEACH AGAIN. 

Our way to the high sand-bank, which I have de- 
scribed as extending all along the coast, led, as usual, 
through patches of Bayberry bushes, which straggled 
into the sand. This, next to the Shrub-oak, was per- 
haps the most common shrub thereabouts. I was 
much attracted by its odoriferous leaves and small gray 
berries which are clustered about the short twigs, just 
below the last year's growth. I know of but two 
bushes in Concord, and they, being staminate plants, 
do not bear fruit. The berries gave it a venerable 
appearance, and they smelled quite spicy, Hke small 
confectionery. Robert Beverley, in his "History of 
Virginia," pubHshed in 1705, states that *'at the mouth 
of their rivers, and all along upon the sea and bay, 
and near many of their creeks and swamps, grows 
the myrtle, bearing a berry, of which they make a 
hard brittle wax, of a curious green color, which by 
refining becomes almost transparent. Of this they 
make candles, which are never greasy to the 
touch nor melt with lying in the hottest weather; 
neither does the snufif of these ever offend the smell, 
Hke that of a tallow candle; but, instead of being 
disagreeable, if an accident puts a candle out, it 



THE BEACH AGAIN. 99 

yields a pleasant fragrancy to all that are in the room; 
insomuch that nice people often put them out on 
purpose to have the incense of the expiring snuff. 
The melting of these berries is said to have been first 
found out by a surgeon in New England, who per- 
formed wonderful things with a salve made of them." 
From the abundance of berries still hanging on the 
bushes, we judged that the inhabitants did not gener- 
ally collect them for tallow, though we had seen a piece 
in the house we had just left. I have since made some 
tallow myself. Holding a basket beneath the bare 
twigs in April, I rubbed them together between my 
hands and thus gathered about a quart in twenty min- 
utes, to which were added enough to make three 
pints, and I might have gathered them much faster 
with a suitable rake and a large shallow basket. They 
have Httle prominences like those of an orange all 
creased in tallow, which also fills the interstices down 
to the stone. The oily part rose to the top, making it 
look hke a savory black broth, which smelled much 
like balm or other herb tea. You let it cool, then 
skim off the tallow from the surface, melt this again 
and strain it. I got about a quarter of a pound weight 
from my three pints, and more yet remained within the 
berries, A small portion cooled in the form of small 
flattish hemispheres, hke crystaUizations, the size of a 
kernel of com (nuggets I called them as I picked them 
out from amid the berries). Loudon says, that ''culti- 
vated trees are said to yield more wax than those that 
are found wild." (See Duplessy, Veg taux Resineux, 
Vol. ll. p. 60.) If you get any pitch on your hands 
in the pine-woods you have only to rub some of these 
berries between your hands to start it off. But the 

tOFC. 



100 CAPE COD, 

ocean was the grand fact there, which made us forget 
both bayberries and men. 

To-day the air was beautifully clear, and the sea no 
longer dark and stormy, though the waves still broke 
with foam along the beach, but sparkhng and full of 
life. Already that morning I had seen the day break 
over the sea as if it came out of its bosom : — 

"The saflfron-robed Dawn rose in haste from the streams 
Of Ocean, that she might bring light to immortals and to 
mortals." 

The sun rose visibly at such -a distance over the sea, 
that the cloud-bank in the horizon, which at first con- 
cealed him, was not perceptible until he had risen high 
behind it, and plainly broke and dispersed it, Hke an 
arrow. But as yet I looked at him as rising over land, 
and could not, without an effort, realize that he was ris- 
ing over the sea. Already I saw some vessels on the 
horizon, which had rounded the Cape in the night, and 
were now well on their watery way to other lands. 

We struck the beach again in the south part of 
Truro. In the early part of the day, while it was flood 
tide, and the beach was narrow and soft, we walked on 
the bank, which was very high here, but not so level 
as the day before, being more interrupted by slight 
hollows. The author of the Description of the Eastern 
Coast says of this part, that "the bank is very high and 
steep. From the edge of it west, there is a strip of 
sand a hundred yards in breadth. Then succeeds 
low brushwood, a quarter of a mile wide, and almost 
impassable. After which comes a thick perplexing 
forest, in which not a house is to be discovered. Sea- 
men, therefore, though the distance between these two 



THE BEACH AGALV. 10 1 

hollows (Newcomb's and Brush Hollows) is great, 
must not attempt to enter the wood, as in a snow- 
stomi they must undoubtedly perish." This is still 
a true description of the country, except that there is 
not much high wood left. 

There were many vessels, like gulls, skimming over 
the surface of the sea, now half concealed in its troughs, 
their dolphin -strikers ploughing the water, now tossed 
on the top of the billows. One, a bark standing 
down parallel with the coast, suddenly furled her 
sails, came to anchor, and swung round in the wind, 
near us, only half a mile from the shore. At first 
we thought that her captain wished to communicate 
with us, and perhaps we did not regard the signal 
of distress, which a mariner would have understood, 
and he cursed us for cold-hearted wreckers who 
turned our backs on him. For hours we could still 
see her anchored there behind us, and we wondered 
how she could afford to loiter so long in her course. 
Or was she a smuggler who had chosen that wild 
beach to land her cargo on? Or did they wish to 
catch fish, or paint their vessel ? Erelong other barks, 
and brigs, and schooners, which had in the mean 
while doubled the Cape, sailed by her in the smacking 
breeze, and our consciences were relieved. Some of 
these vessels lagged behind, while others steadily 
went ahead. We narrowly watched their rig and the 
cut of their jibs, and how they walked the water, for 
there was all the difTerence between them that there 
is between living creatures. But we wondered that 
they should be remembering Boston and New York 
and Liverpool, steering for them, out there; as if 
the sailor might forget his peddling business on such a 



102 CAPE COD. 

grand highway. They had perchance brought oranges 
from the Western Isles ; and were they carrying back 
the peel? We might as well transport our old traps 
across the ocean of eternity. Is that but another 
''trading flood," with its blessed isles? Is Heaven 
such a harbor as the Liverpool docks? 

Still held on without a break, the inland barrens and 
shrubbery, the desert and the high sand-bank with its 
even slope, the broad white beach, the breakers, the 
green water on the bar, and the Atlantic Ocean ; and 
we traversed with deUght new reaches of the shore ; we 
took another lesson in sea-horses' manes and sea- 
cows' tails, in sea-jellies and sea -clams, with our new- 
gained experience. The sea ran hardly less than the 
day before. It seemed with every wave to be sub- 
siding, because such was our expectation, and yet when 
hours had elapsed we could see no difference. But 
there it was, balancing itself, the restless ocean by 
our side, lurching in its gait. Each wave left the sand 
all braided or woven, as it were, with a coarse woof 
and warp, and a distinct raised edge to its rapid work. 
We made no haste, since we wished to see the ocean at 
our leisure, and indeed that soft sand was no place in 
which to be in a hurry, for one mile there was as good 
as two elsewhere. Besides, we were obliged fre- 
quently to empty our shoes of the sand which one took 
in in climbing or descending the bank. 

As we were walking close to the water's edge this 
morning, we turned round, by chance, and saw a large 
black object which the waves had just cast up on the 
beach behind us, yet too far off for us to distinguish 
what it was ; and when we were about to return to it, 
two men came running from the bank, where no human 



THE BEACH AGAIN. I03 

beings had appeared before, as if they had come out of 
the sand, in order to save it before another wave took 
it. As we approached, it took successively the form 
of a huge fish, a drowned man, a sail or a net, and 
finally of a mass of tow-cloth, part of the cargo of the 
Franklin, which the men loaded into a cart. 

Objects on the beach, whether men or inanimate 
things, look not only exceedingly grotesque, but much 
larger and more wonderful than they actually are. 
Lately, when approaching the sea -shore several degrees 
south of this, I saw before me, seemingly half a mile 
distant, what appeared like bold and rugged cliffs on 
the beach, fifteen feet high, and whitened by the sun 
and waves ; but after a few steps it proved to be low 
heaps of rags, — part of the cargo of a wrecked vessel, 
— scarcely more than a foot in height. Once also it 
was my business to go in search of the rehcs of a hu- 
man body, mangled by sharks, which had just been 
cast up, a week after a wreck, having got the direction 
from a light-house: I should find it a mile or two 
distant over the sand, a dozen rods from the water, 
covered with a cloth, by a stick stuck up. I expected 
that I must look very narrowly to find so small an 
object, but the sandy beach, half a mile wide, and 
stretching farther than the eye could reach, was so 
perfecdy smooth and bare, and the mirage toward the 
sea so magnifying, that when I was half a mile dis- 
tant the insignificant sliver which marked the spot 
looked Hke a bleached spar, and the relics were as con- 
spicuous as if they lay in state on that sandy plain, 
or a generation had labored to pile up their cairn 
there. Close at hand they were simply some bones 
with a little flesh adhering to them, in fact, only a 



104 ^-'^P^ ^^^' 

slight inequality in the sweep of the shore. There 
was nothing at all remarkable about them, and they 
were singularly inoffensive both to the senses and the 
imagination. But as I stood there they grew more and 
more imposing. They were alone with the beach and 
the sea, whose hollow roar seemed addressed to them, 
and I was impressed as if there was an understanding 
between them and the ocean which necessarily left 
me out, with my sniveUing sympathies. That dead 
body had taken possession of the shore, and reigned 
over it as no living one could, in the name of a certain 
majesty which belonged to it. 

We afterward saw many small pieces of tow-cloth 
washed up, and I learn that it continued to be found in 
good condition, even as late as November in that year, 
half a dozen bolts at a time. 

We eagerly tilled our pockets with the smooth round 
pebbles which in some places, even here, were thinly 
sprinkled over the sand, together with flat circular 
shells (ScutellcB?); but, as we had read, when they 
were dry they had lost their beauty, and at each 
sitting we emptied our pockets again of the least 
remarkable, until our collection was well culled. 
Every material was rolled into the pebble form by 
the waves; not only stones of various kinds, but the 
hard coal which some vessel had dropped, bits of 
glass, and in one instance a mass of peat three feet 
long, where there was nothing like it to be seen for 
many miles. All the great rivers of the globe are 
annually, if not constantly, discharging great quanti- 
ties of lumber, which drifts to distant shores. I have 
also seen very perfect pebbles of brick, and bars 
of Castile soap from a wreck rolled into perfect cylin- 



THE BEACH AGAIN. 105 

ders, and still spirally streaked with red, like a barber's 
pole. When a cargo of rags is washed ashore, every 
old pocket and bag-like recess will be filled to bursting 
with sand by being rolled on the beach ; and on one 
occasion, the pockets in the clothing of the wrecked 
being thus puffed up, even after they had been ripped 
open by wreckers, deluded me into the hope of identi- 
fying them by the contents. A pair of gloves looked 
exactly as if filled by a hand. The water in such 
clothing is soon wrung out and evaporated, but the 
sand, which works itself into every seam, is not so 
easily got rid of. Sponges, which are picked up on the 
shore, as is well known, retain some of the sand of the 
beach to the latest day, in spite of every effort to extract 
it. 

I found one stone on the top of the bank, of a dark 
gray color, shaped exactly like a giant clam {Madra 
solidissima), and of the same size ; and, what was more 
remarkable, one-half of the outside had shelled off and 
lay near it, of the same form and depth with one of the 
valves of this clam, while the other half was loose, leav- 
ing a solid core of a darker color within it. I after- 
ward saw a stone resembling a razor clam, but it was 
a solid one. It appeared as if the stone, in the process 
of formation, had filled the mould which a clam-shell 
furnished ; or the same law that shaped the clam had 
made a clam of stone. Dead clams, with shells full 
of sand, are called sand clams. There were many 
of the large clam-shells filled with sand; and some- 
times one valve was separately filled exactly even, 
as if it had been heaped and then scraped. Even 
among the many small stones on the top of the bank, 
I found one arrow-head. 



I06 CAPE COD 

Beside the giant clam and barnacles, we found on 
the shore a small clam (Mesodesma arctata), which 
I dug with my hands in numbers on the bars, and 
which is sometimes eaten by the inhabitants, in the 
absence of the Mya arenaria, on this side. Most 
of their empty shells had been perforated by some 
foe. — Also, the 

Astarte castanea. 

The Edible Mussel {Mytilus edulis) on the few 
rocks, and washed up in curious bunches of forty or 
fifty, held together by its rope-like hyssus. 

The Scollop Shell {Pecten concentricus) , used for 
card -racks and pin -cushions. 

Cockles, or Cuckoos {Natica heros), and their re- 
markable nidus, called "sand-circle," looking Hke 
the top of a stone jug without the stopple, and broken 
on one side, or like a flaring dickey made of sand- 
paper. Also, 

Cancellaria Couthouyi (?), and 

Periwinkles (?) {Fusiis decemcostatus) . 

We afterward saw some other kinds on the Bay side. 
Gould states that this Cape *'has hitherto proved a bar- 
rier to the migrations of many species of Mollusca." — 
"Of the one hundred and ninety -seven species [which 
he described in 1840 as belonging to Massachusetts], 
eighty-three do not pass to the South shore, and 
fifty are not found on the North shore of the 
Cape." 

Among Crustacea, there were the shells of Crabs and 
Lobsters, often bleached quite white high up the beach ; 
Sea or Beach Fleas (Amphipoda) ; and the cases of the 
Horse-shoe Crab, or Saucepan Fish {Limulus Poly- 
phcBmus), of which we saw many ahve on the Bay side, 



THE BEACH AGAIN. 10/ 

where they feed pigs on them. Their tails were used 
as arrow-heads by the Indians. 

Of Radiata, there were the Sea Chestnut or Egg 
(Echinus granulatus), commonly divested of its spines ; 
flat circular shells {Scutella parma?) covered with 
chocolate-colored spines, but becoming smooth and 
white, with five petal-hke figures ; a few Star-fishes or 
Five-fingers {Asterias ruhens) ; and Sun-fishes or Sea- 
jellies {Aurelice). 

There was also at least one species of Sponge. 

The plants which I noticed here and there on the 
pure sandy shelf, between the ordinary high-water 
mark and the foot of the bank, were Sea Rocket 
(Cakile Americana), Saltwort (Salsola kali), Sea 
Sandwort (Honkenya peploides), Sea Burdock (Xan- 
thium echinatum), Sea-side Spurge {Euphorbia poly- 
gonifolia); also, Beach Grass (Arundo, Psamma, or 
Calamagrostis arenaria), Sea-side Golden -rod (Soli- 
dago sempervirens), and the Beach Pea (Lathyrus 
maritimus) . 

Sometimes we helped a wrecker turn over a larger 
log than usual, or we amused ourselves with rolHng 
stones down the bank, but we rarely could make one 
reach the water, the beach was so soft and wide; 
or we bathed in some shallow within a bar, where the 
sea covered us with sand at every flux, though it was 
quite cold and windy. The ocean there is commonly 
but a tantalizing prospect in hot weather, for with all 
that water before you, there is, as we were afterward 
told, no bathing on the Atlantic side, on account of the 
undertow and the rumor of sharks. At the light- 
house both in Eastham and Truro, the only houses quite 
on the shore, they declared, the next year, that they 



I08 ' CAPE COD. 

would not bathe there *'for any sum," for they some- 
times saw the sharks tossed up and quiver for a mo- 
ment on the sand. Others laughed at these stories, 
but perhaps they could afford to because they never 
bathed anywhere. One old wrecker told us that he 
killed a regular man-eating shark fourteen feet long, 
and hauled him out with his oxen, where we had bathed ; 
and another, that his father caught a smaller one of 
the same kind that was stranded there, by standing 
him up on his snout so that the waves could not take 
him. They will tell you tough stories of sharks all 
over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt 
utterly, — how they will sometimes upset a boat, 
or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can 
easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt 
that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up 
the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long. I 
should add, however, that in July we walked on the 
bank here a quarter of a mile parallel with a fish about 
six feet in length, possibly a shark, which was 
prowling slowly along within two rods of the 
shore. It was of a pale brown color, singularly 
film-like and indistinct in the water, as if all 
nature abetted this child of ocean, and showed 
many darker transverse bars or rings whenever 
it came to the surface. It is well known that 
different fishes even of the same species are colored 
by the water they inhabit. We saw it go into a little 
cove or bathing-tub, where we had just been bathing, 
where the water was only four or five feet deep at 
that time, and after exploring it go slowly out again ; 
but we continued to bathe there, only observing first 
from the bank if the cove was preoccupied. We 



THE BEACH AGAIN. 109 

thought that the water was fuller of life, more aerated 
perhaps than that of the Bay, like soda-water, for we 
were as particular as young salmon, and the expecta- 
tion of encountering a shark did not subtract anything 
from its life-giving quahties. 

Sometimes we sat on the wet beach and watched the 
beach birds, sand-pipers, and others, trotting along 
close to each wave, and waiting for the sea to cast up 
their breakfast. The former {Charadrius melodus) 
ran with great rapidity and then stood stock still re- 
markably erect and hardly to be distinguished from 
the beach. The wet sand was covered with small 
skipping Sea Fleas, which apparently make a part of 
their food. These last are the little scavengers of the 
beach, and are so numerous that they will devour large 
fishes, which have been cast up, in a very short time. 
One Httle bird not larger than a sparrow, — it may 
have been a Phalarope, — would alight on the tur- 
bulent surface where the breakers were five or six 
feet high, and float buoyantly there like a duck, 
cunningly taking to its wings and lifting itself a few 
feet through the air over the foaming crest of each 
breaker, but sometimes outriding safely a considerable 
billow which hid it some seconds, when its instinct 
told it that it would not break. It was a Httle crea- 
ture thus to sport with the ocean, but it was as perfect 
a success in its way as the breakers in theirs. There 
was also an almost uninterrupted line of coots rising 
and falling with the waves, a few rods from the shore, 
the whole length of the Cape. They made as constant 
a part of the ocean's border as the pads or pickerel- 
weed do of that of a pond. We read the following 
as to the Storm Petrel {Thalassidroma Wilsonii), 



no CAPE COD. 

which is seen in the Bay as well as on the outside. 
"The feathers on the breast of the Storm Petrel are, 
like those of all swimming birds, water-proof; but 
substances not susceptible of being wetted with water 
are, for that very reason, the best fitted for collecting 
oil from its surface. That function is performed by 
the feathers on the breast of the Storm Petrels as they 
touch on the surface; and though that may not be 
the only way in which they procure their food, it is 
certainly that in which they obtain great part of it. 
They dash along till they have loaded their feathers 
and then they pause upon the wave and remove the 
oil with their bills." 

Thus we kept on along the gently curving shore, see- 
ing two or three miles ahead at once, — along this 
ocean side-walk, where there was none to turn out for, 
with the middle of the road the highway of nations on 
our right, and the sand cliffs of the Cape on our left. 
We saw this forenoon a part of the wreck of a vessel, 
probably the Franklin, a large piece fifteen feet square, 
and still freshly painted. With a grapple and a line 
we could have saved it, for the waves repeatedly 
washed it within cast, but they as often took it back. 
It would have been a lucky haul for some poor wrecker, 
for I have been told that one man who paid three or 
four dollars for a part of the wreck of that vessel, 
sold fifty or sixty dollars' worth of iron out of it. 
Another, the same who picked up the Captain's 
valise with the memorable letter in it, showed me, 
growing in his garden, many pear and plum trees 
which washed ashore from her, all nicely tied up and 
labelled, and he said that he might have got five hun- 
dred dollars worth ; for a Mr. Bell was importing the 



THE BEACH AGAIN. Ill 

nucleus of a nursery to be established near Boston. 
His turnip-seed came from the same source. Also 
valuable spars from the same vessel and from the 
Cactus lay in his yard. In short the inhabitants visit 
the beach to see what they have caught as regularly 
as a fisherman his weir or a lumberer his boom ; the 
Cape is their boom. I heard of one who had recently 
picked up twenty barrels of apples in good condi- 
tion, probably a part of a deck load thrown over in 
a storm. 

Though there are wreck -masters appointed to look 
after valuable property which must be advertised, yet 
undoubtedly a great deal of value is secretly carried 
off. But are we not all wreckers contriving that some 
treasure may be washed up on our beach, that we 
may secure it, and do we not infer the habits of these 
Nauset and Barnegat wreckers, from the common 
modes of getting a living? 

The sea, vast and wild as it is, bears thus the waste 
and wrecks of human art to its remotest shore. There 
is no telling what it may not vomit up. It lets nothing 
He ; not even the giant clams which cHng to its bottom. 
It is still heaving up the tow -cloth of the Franklin, and 
perhaps a piece of some old pirate's ship, wrecked 
more than a hundred years ago, comes ashore to-day. 
Some years since, when a vessel was wrecked here 
which had nutmegs in her cargo, they were strewn all 
along the beach, and for a considerable time were not 
spoiled by the salt water. Soon afterward, a fisher- 
man caught a cod which was full of them. Why, 
then, might not the Spice-Islanders shake their nut- 
meg trees into the ocean, and let all nations who stand 
in need of them pick them up ? However, after a year, 



112 CAPE COD. 

I found that the nutmegs from the Franklin had be- 
come soft. 

You might make a curious Hst of articles which 
fishes have swallowed, — sailors' open clasp-knives, 
and bright tin snuff-boxes, not knowing what was in 
them, — and jugs, and jewels, and Jonah. The other 
day I came across the following scrap in a news- 
paper. 

" A Religious Fish. — A short time ago, mine host 
Stewart, of the Denton Hotel, purchased a rock-fish, 
weighing about sixty pounds. On opening it he found 
in it a certificate of membership of the M. E. Church, 
which we read as follows : — 

Member 
Methodist E. Church. 
Founded A. D. 1784. 
Quarterly Ticket. 18 

Minister. 

'For our light afifhction, which is but for a moment, 
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory.' — 2 Cor. iv. 17. 

•O what are all my suflferings here, 

If, Lord, thou count me meet 
With that enraptured host t' appear, 
And worship at thy feet.' 

*' The paper was of course in a crumpled and wet 
condition, but on exposing it to the sun, and ironing 
the kinks out of it, it became quite legible. — Denton 
{Md.) Journal." 

From time to time we saved a wreck ourselves, a box 
or barrel, and set it on its end, and appropriated it with 
crossed sticks; and it will lie there perhaps, respected 



THE BEACH AGAIN. II3 

by brother wreckers, until some more violent storm 
shall take it, really lost to man until wrecked again. 
We also saved, at the cost of wet feet only, a valuable 
cord and buoy, part of a seine, with which the sea 
was playing, for it seemed ungracious to refuse the 
least gift which so great a personage offered you. 
We brought this home and still use it for a garden line. 
I picked up a bottle half buried in the wet sand, 
covered with barnacles, but stoppled tight, and half 
full of red ale, which still smacked of juniper, — all 
that remained I fancied from the wreck of a rowdy 
world, — that great salt sea on the one hand, and this 
little sea of ale on the other, preserving their separate 
characters. What if it could tell us its adventures 
over countless ocean waves ! Man would not be 
man through such ordeals as it had passed. But as I 
poured it slowly out on to the sand, it seemed to me that 
man himself was Hke a half-emptied bottle of pale ale, 
which Time had drunk so far, yet stoppled tight for a 
while, and drifting about in the ocean of circumstances ; 
but destined erelong to mingle with the surrounding 
waves, or be spilled amid the sands of a distant shore. 
In the summer I saw two men fishing for Bass here- 
abouts. Their bait was a bullfrog, or several small 
frogs in a bunch, for want of squid. They followed a 
retiring wave and whirhng their hues round and round 
their heads with increasing rapidity, threw them as far 
as they could into the sea; then retreating, sat down, 
flat on the sand, and waited for a bite. It was literally 
(or littorally) walking down to the shore, and throwing 
your Hne into the Atlantic. I should not have known 
what might take hold of the other end, whether Proteus 
or another. At any rate, if you could not pull him in, 



114 CAPE COD. 

why, you might let him go without being pulled in 
yourself. And they knew by experience that it would 
be a Striped Bass, or perhaps a Cod, for these fishes 
play along near the shore. 

From time to time we sat under the lee of a sand-hill 
on the bank, thinly covered with coarse beach-grass, 
and steadily gazed on the sea, or watched the vessels 
going south, all Blessings of the Bay of course. We 
could see a httle more than half a circle of ocean, 
besides the glimpses of the Bay which we got behind 
us; the sea there was not wild and dreary in all 
respects, for there were frequently a hundred sail in 
sight at once on the Atlantic. You can commonly 
count about eighty in a favorable summer day, and 
pilots sometimes land and ascend the bank to look 
out for those which require their services. These 
had been waiting for fair weather, and had come out 
of Boston Harbor together. The same is the case when 
they have been assembled in the Vineyard Sound, 
so that you may see but few one day, and a large 
fleet the next. Schooners with many jibs and stay- 
sails crowded all the sea road; square-rigged vessels 
with their great height and breadth of canvas were 
ever and anon appearing out of the far horizon, or 
disappearing and sinking into it; here and there a 
pilot-boat was towing its httle boat astern toward some 
distant foreigner who had just fired a gun, the echo 
of which along the shore sounded like the caving of the 
bank. We could see the pilot looking through his 
glass toward the distant ship which was putting back 
to speak with him. He sails many a mile to meet her; 
and now she puts her sails aback, and communicates 
with him alongside, — sends some important message 



THE BEACH AGAIN. 115 

to the owners, and then bids farewell to these shores 
for good and all ; or, perchance a propeller passed and 
made fast to some disabled craft, or one that had been 
becalmed, whose cargo of fruit might spoil. Though 
silently, and for the most part incommunicatively, 
going about their business, they were, no doubt, 
a source of cheerfulness and a kind of society to one 
another. 

To-day it was the Purple Sea, an epithet which I 
should not before have accepted. There were distinct 
patches of the color of a purple grape with the bloom 
rubbed off. But first and last the sea is of all colors. 
Well writes Gilpin concerning "the brilhant hues 
which are continually playing on the surface of a 
quiet ocean," and this was not too turbulent at a dis- 
tance from the shore. " Beautiful," says he, "no 
doubt in a high degree are those glimmering tints 
which often invest the tops of mountains; but they 
are mere coruscations compared with these marine 
colors, which are continually varying and shifting 
into each other in all the vivid splendor of the rain- 
bow, through the space often of several leagues." 
Commonly, in calm weather, for half a mile from the 
shore, where the bottom tinges it, the sea is green, or 
greenish, as are some ponds ; then blue for many miles, 
often with purple tinges, bounded in the distance by a 
light almost silvery stripe; beyond which there is 
generally a dark -blue rim, like a mountain ridge in the 
horizon, as if, like that, it owed its color to the inter- 
vening atmosphere. On another day it will be marked 
with long streaks, alternately smooth and rippled, 
light-colored and dark, even hke our inland meadows 
in a freshet, and showing which way the wind sets. 



Il6 CAPE COD. 

Thus we sat on the foaming shore, looking on the 
wine-colored ocean, — 

©iV ec^' CtAoS TToXt^S, OpOOiV €7ri OLVOTra ttovtov. 

Here and there was a darker spot on its surface, the 
shadow of a cloud, though the sky was so clear that 
no cloud would have been noticed otherwise, and no 
shadow would have been seen on the land, where a 
much smaller surface is visible at once. So, distant 
clouds and showers may be seen on all sides by a sailor 
in the course of a day, which do not necessarily portend 
rain where he is. In July we saw similar dark-blue 
patches where schools of Menhaden rippled the sur- 
face, scarcely to be distinguished from the shadows of 
clouds. Sometimes the sea was spotted with them far 
and wide, such is its inexhaustible fertility. Close at 
hand you see their back fin, which is very long and 
sharp, projecting two or three inches above water. 
From time to time also we saw the white bellies of the 
Bass playing along the shore. 

It was a poetic recreation to watch those distant sails 
steering for half-fabulous ports, whose very names are 
a mysterious music to our ears: Fayal, and Babel- 
mandel, ay, and Chagres, and Panama, — bound 
to the famous Bay of San Francisco, and the golden 
streams of Sacramento and San Joaquin, to Feather 
River and the American Fork, where Sutter's Fort 
presides, and inland stands the City de los Angeles. 
It is remarkable that men do not sail the sea with more 
expectation. Nothing remarkable was ever accom- 
pHshed in a prosaic mood. The heroes and dis- 
coverers have found true more than was previously 
believed, only when they were expecting and dreaming 



THE BEACH AGAIN. 



117 



of something more than their contemporaries dreamed 
of, or even themselves discovered, that is, when they 
were in a frame of mind fitted to behold the truth. 
Referred to the world's standard, they are always 
insane. Even savages have indirectly surmised as 
much. Humboldt, speaking of Columbus approach- 
ing the New World, says: "The grateful coolness of 
the evening air, the ethereal purity of the starry firma- 
ment, the balmy fragrance of flowers, wafted to him by 
the land breeze, all led him to suppose (as we are told 
by Herrera, in the Decades) that he was approaching 
the garden of Eden, the sacred abode of our first 
parents. The Orinoco seemed to him one of the four 
rivers which, according to the venerable tradition of 
the ancient world, flowed from Paradise, to water and 
divide the surface of the earth, newly adorned with 
plants." So even the expeditions for the discovery 
of El Dorado, and of the Fountain of Youth, led to 
real, if not compensatory discoveries. 

We discerned vessels so far off, when once we began 
to look, that only the tops of their masts in the horizon 
were visible, and it took a strong intention of the eye, 
and its most favorable side, to see them at all, and some- 
times we doubted if we were not counting our eyelashes. 
Charles Darwin states that he saw, from the base of the 
Andes, ''the masts of the vessels at anchor in the bay of 
Valparaiso, although not less than twenty -six geograph- 
ical miles distant," and that Anson had been surprised 
at the distance at which his vessels were discovered 
from the coast, without knowing the reason, namely, 
the great height of the land and the transparency of the 
air.^ Steamers may be detected much farther than 
sailing vessels, for, as one says, when their hulls and 



Il8 CAPE COD. 

masts of wood and iron are down, their smoky masts 
and streamers still betray them ; and the same writer, 
speaking of the comparative advantages of bitumi- 
nous and anthracite coal for war-steamers, states that, 
''from the ascent of the columns of smoke above the 
horizon, the motions of the steamers in Calais Harbor 
[on the coast of France] are at all times observable 
at Ramsgate [on the English coast], from the first 
lighting of the fires to the putting out at sea; and that 
in America the steamers burning the fat bituminous 
coal can be tracked at sea at least seventy miles before 
the hulls become visible, by the dense columns of 
black smoke pouring out of their chimneys, and 
trailing along the horizon." 

Though there were numerous vessels at this great 
distance in the horizon on every side, yet the vast 
spaces between them, Hke the spaces between the 
stars, far as they were distant from us, so were they 
from one another — nay, some were twice as far from 
each other as from us, — impressed us with a sense of 
the immensity of the ocean, the "unfruitful ocean," 
as it has been called, and we could see what pro- 
portion man and his works bear to the globe. As 
we looked off, and saw the water growing darker and 
darker and deeper and deeper the farther we looked, 
till it was awful to consider, and it appeared to have no 
relation to the friendly land, either as shore or bottom, 
— of what use is a bottom if it is out of sight, if it is 
two or three miles from the surface, and you are to be 
drowned so long before you get to it, though it were 
made of the same stuff with your native soil? — over 
that ocean, where, as the Veda says, "there is nothing 
to give support, nothing to rest upon, nothing to cling 



THE BE A CH A GAIN. i i q 

to," I felt that I was a land animal. The man in a 
balloon even may commonly alight on the earth in a 
few moments, but the sailor's only hope is that he may 
reach the distant shore. I could then appreciate the 
heroism of the old navigator. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, of 
whom it is related, that being overtaken by a storm 
when on his return from America, in the year 1583, 
far northeastward from where we were, sitting abaft 
with a book in his hand, just before he was swallowed 
up in the deep, he cried out to his comrades in the 
Hind, as they came within hearing, "We are as near 
to Heaven by sea as by land." I saw that it would 
not be easy to realize. 

On Cape Cod, the next most eastern land you hear of 
is St. George's Bank (the fishermen tell of ''Georges," 
''Cashus," and other sunken lands which they fre- 
quent) . Every Cape man has a theory about George's 
Bank having been an island once, and in their accounts 
they gradually reduce the shallowness from six, five, 
four, two fathoms, to somebody's confident assertion 
that he has seen a mackerel-gull sitting on a piece of 
dry land there. It reminded me, when I thought of 
the shipwrecks which had taken place there, of the 
Isle of Demons, laid down off this coast in old charts 
of the New World. There must be something mon- 
strous, methinks, in a vision of the sea bottom from 
over some bank a thousand miles from the shore, 
more awful than its imagined bottomlessness; a 
drowned continent, all livid and frothing at the nostrils, 
like the body of a drowned man, which is better sunk 
deep than near the surface. 

I have been surprised to discover from a steamer the 
shallowness of Massachusetts Bay itself. Off BiUings- 



120 CAPE COD. 

gate Point I could have touched the JDottom with a pole, 
and I plainly saw it variously shaded with sea -weed, at 
five or six miles from the shore. This is ''The Shoal - 
ground of the Cape," it is true, but elsewhere the Bay is 
not much deeper than a country pond. We are told 
that the deepest water in the English Channel between 
Shakespeare's ClifT and Cape Grinez, in France, is one 
hundred and eighty feet; and Guyot says that "the 
Baltic Sea has a depth of only one hundred and twenty 
feet between the coasts of Germany and those of 
Sweden," and "the Adriatic between Venice and 
Trieste has a depth of only one hundred and thirty 
feet." A pond in my native town, only half a mile 
long, is more than one hundred feet deep. 

The ocean is but a larger lake. At midsummer you 
may sometimes see a strip of glassy smoothness on it, 
a few rods in width and many miles long, as if the 
surface there were covered with a thin pellicle of oil, 
just as on a country pond; a sort of stand-still, you 
would say, at the meeting or parting of two currents of 
air (if it does not rather mark the unrippled steadiness 
of a current of water beneath), for sailors tell of the 
ocean and land breeze meeting between the fore'and 
aft sails of a vessel, while the latter are full, the former 
being suddenly taken aback. Daniel Webster, in one 
of his letters describing blue-fishing off Martha's Vine- 
yard, referring to those smooth places, which fishermen 
andsailors call "shcks,"says: "Wemetwith them yes- 
terday, and our boatman made for them, whenever 
discovered. He said they were caused by the blue -fish 
chopping up their prey. That is to say, those vora- 
cious fellows get into a school of menhaden, which are 
too large to swallow whole, and they bite them into 



THE BEACH AGAIN. I2I 

pieces to suit their l:istcs. And the oil from this 
butchery, rising to the surface, makes the 'shck.'" 

Yet this same placid Ocean, as civil now as a city's 
harbor, a place for ships and commerce, will erelong 
be lashed into sudden fury, and all its caves and cHflfs 
will resound with tumult. It will ruthlessly heave 
these vessels to and fro, break them in pieces in its 
sandy or stony jaws, and dehver their crews to sea- 
monsters. It will play with them like sea-weed, 
distend them like dead frogs, and carry them about, 
now high, now low, to show to the fishes, giving them 
a nibble. This gende Ocean will toss and tear the rag 
of a man's body like the father of mad bulls, and his 
relatives may be seen seeking the remnants for weeks 
along the strand. From some quiet inland hamlet 
they have rushed weeping to the unheard-of shore, 
and now stand uncertain where a sailor has recently 
been buried amid the sandhills. 

It is generally supposed that they who have long been 
conversant with the Ocean can foretell by certain indi- 
cations, such as its roar and the notes of sea-fowl, 
when it will change from calm to storm ; but probably 
no such ancient mariner as we dream of exists; they 
know no more, at least, than the older sailors do about 
this voyage of Hfe on which we are all embarked. Nev- 
ertheless, we love to hear the sayings of old sailors, and 
their accounts of natural phenomena, which totally 
ignore, and are ignored by, science; and possibly 
they have not always looked over the gunwale so long 
in vain. Kalm repeats a story which was told him in 
Philadelphia by a Mr. Cock, who was one day sailing 
to the West Indies in a small yacht, with an old man 
on board who was well acquainted with those seas. 



122 CAPE COD. 

''The old man sounding the depth, called to the 
mate to tell Mr. Cock to launch the boats immediately, 
and to put a sufficient number of men into them, in 
order to tow the yacht during the calm, that they 
might reach the island before them as soon as possible, 
as within twenty-four hours there would be a strong 
hurricane. Mr. Cock asked him what reasons he 
had to think so ; the old man repHed, that on sounding, 
he saw the lead in the water at a distance of many 
fathoms more than he had seen it before ; that there- 
fore the water was become clear all of a sudden, which 
he looked upon as a certain sign of an impending 
hurricane in the sea." The sequel of the story is, that 
by good fortune, and by dint of rowing, they managed 
to gain a safe harbor before the hurricane had reached 
its height; but it finally raged with so much violence, 
that not only many ships were lost and houses unroofed, 
but even their own vessel in harbor was washed so 
far on shore that several weeks elapsed before it could 
be got off. 

The Greeks would not have called the ocean dr/ovye- 
T0%^ or unfruitful, though it does not produce wheat, if 
they had viewed it by the light of modern science, for nat- 
uraHsts now assert that "the sea, and not the land, is 
the principal seat of life," — though not of vegetable life. 
Darwin affirms that "our most thickly inhabited forests 
appear almost as deserts when we come to compare 
them with the corresponding regions of the ocean." 
Agassiz and Gould tell us that "the sea teems with 
animals of all classes, far beyond the extreme point of 
flowering plants"; but they add, that "experiments 
of dredging in very deep water have also taught us that 
the abyss of the ocean is nearly a desert" ; — "so that 



THE BEACH AGAIN. 1 23 

modern investigations," to quote the words of Desor, 
"merely go to confirm the great idea which was vaguely 
anticipated by the ancient poets and philosophers, that 
the Ocean is the origin of all things." Yet marine 
animals and plants hold a lower rank in the scale of 
being than land animals and plants. "There is no 
instance known," says Desor, "of an animal becoming 
aquatic in its perfect state, after having lived in its 
lower stage on dry land," but as in the case of the tad- 
pole, "the progress invariably points towards the dry 
land." In short, the dry land itself came through and 
out of the water in its way to the heavens, for, " in 
going back through the geological ages, we come to an 
epoch when, according to all appearances, the dry 
land did not exist, and when the surface of our globe 
was entirely covered with water." We looked on the 
sea, then, once more, not as a.rpv^cTo%, or unfruitful, 
but as it has been more truly called, the "laboratory 
of continents." 

Though we have indulged in some placid reflections 
of late, the reader must not forget that the dash and roar 
of the waves were incessant. Indeed, it would be well 
if he were to read with a large conch-shell at his ear. 
But notwithstanding that it was very cold and windy 
to-day, it was such a cold as we thought would not 
cause one to take cold who was exposed to it, owing to 
the saltness of the air and the dryness of the soil. 
Yet the author of the old Description of Wellfleet says : 
"The atmosphere is very much impregnated with 
saline particles, which, perhaps, with the great use of 
fish, and the neglect of cider and spruce-beer, may be 
a reason why the people are more subject to sore 
mouths and throats than in other places." 



VII. 

ACROSS THE CAPE. 

When we have returned from the sea -side, we some- 
times ask ourselves why we did not spend more time 
in gazing at the sea ; but very soon the traveller does 
not look at the sea more than at the heavens. As for 
the interior, if the elevated sand-bar in the midst of the 
ocean can be said to have any interior, it was an 
exceedingly desolate landscape, with rarely a culti- 
vated or cultivable field in sight. We saw no villages, 
and seldom a house, for these are generally on the Bay 
side. It was a succession of shrubby hills and valleys, 
now wearing an autumnal tint. You would frequently 
think, from the character of the surface, the dwarfish 
trees, and the bearberries around, that you were on the 
top of a mountain. The only wood in Eastham was 
on the edge of Wellfleet. The pitch-pines were not 
commonly more than fifteen or eighteen feet high. 
The larger ones were covered with lichens, — often 
hung with the long gray Usnea. There is scarcely 
a white-pine on the forearm of the Cape. Yet in the 
northwest part of Eastham, near the Camp Ground, 
we saw, the next summer, some quite rural, and even 
sylvan retreats, for the Cape, where small rustling 
groves of oaks and locusts and whispering pines, on 
perfectly level ground, made a little paradise. The 
124 



ACJ^OSS THE CAPE. 1 25 

locusts, both transplanted and growing naturally 
about the houses there, appeared to flourish better 
than any other tree. There were thin belts of wood 
in Wellfleet and Truro, a mile or more from the 
Atlantic, but, for the most part, we could see the 
horizon through them, or, if extensive, the trees were 
not large. Both oaks and pines had often the same 
flat look with the apple-trees. Commonly, the oak 
woods twenty-five years old were a mere scraggy 
shrubbery nine or ten feet high, and we could fre- 
quently reach to their topmost leaf. Much that is 
called "woods" was about half as high as this, — 
only patches of shrub-oak, bayberry, beach-plum, 
and wild roses, overrun with woodbine. When the 
roses were in bloom, these patches in the midst of the 
sand displayed such a profusion of blossoms, mingled 
with the aroma of the bayberry, that no Itahan or 
other artificial rose-garden could equal them. They 
were perfectly Elysian, and realized my idea of an 
oasis in the desert. Huckleberry-bushes were very 
abundant, and the next summer they bore a remarkable 
quantity of that kind of gall called Huckleberry -apple, 
forming quite handsome though monstrous blossoms. 
But it must be added, that this shrubbery swarmed 
with woodticks, sometimes very troublesome parasites, 
and which it takes very horny fingers to crack. 

The inhabitants of these towns have a great regard 
for a tree, though their standard for one is necessarily 
neither large nor high ; and when they tell you of the 
large trees that once grew here, you must think of 
them, not as absolutely large, but large compared 
with the present generation. Their "brave old oaks," 
of which they speak with so much respect, and which 



126 CAPE COD. 

they will point out to you as relics of the primitive 
forest, one hundred or one hundred and fifty, ay, 
for aught they know, two hundred years old, have a 
ridiculously dwarfish appearance, which excites a 
smile in the beholder. The largest and most vener- 
able which they will show you in such a case are, per- 
haps, not more than twenty or twenty-five feet high. 
I was especially amused by the Liliputian old oaks in 
the south part of Truro. To the inexperienced eye, 
which appreciated their proportions only, they might 
appear vast as the tree which saved his royal majesty, 
but measured, they were dwarfed at once ahnost into 
lichens which a deer might eat up in a morning. Yet 
they will tell you that large schooners were once built 
of timber which grew in Wellfleet. The old houses 
also are built of the timber of the Cape ; but instead 
of the forests in the midst of which they originally 
stood, barren heaths, with poverty-grass for heather, 
now stretch away on every side. The modem houses 
are built of what is called "dimension timber," 
imported from Maine, all ready to be set up, so that 
commonly they do not touch it again with an axe. 
Almost all the wood used for fuel is imported by 
vessels or currents, and of course all the coal. I was 
told that probably a quarter of the fuel and a con- 
siderable part of the lumber used in North Truro 
was drift-wood. Many get all their fuel from the 
beach. 

Of birds not found in the interior of the State, — at 
least in my neighborhood, — I heard, in the summer, 
the Black-throated Bunting {Fringilla Americana) 
amid the shrubbery, and in the open land the Upland 
Plover {Totanus Bartramius), whose quivering notes 



ACROSS THE CAPE. 12/ 

were ever and anon prolonged into a clear, somewhat 
plaintive, yet hawk -like scream, which sounded at a 
very indefinite distance. The bird may have been 
in the next field, though it sounded a mile off. 

To-day we were walking through Truro, a town of 
about eighteen hundred inhabitants. We had already 
come to Pamet River, which empties into the Bay. 
This was the limit of the Pilgrims' journey up the Cape 
from Provincetown, when seeking a place for settle- 
ment. It rises in a hollow within a few rods of the 
Atlantic, and one who lives near its source told us that 
in high tides the sea leaked through, yet the wind and 
waves preserve intact the barrier between them, and 
thus the whole river is steadily driven westward butt- 
end foremost, — fountain-head, channel, and light- 
house at the mouth, all together. 

Early in the afternoon we reached the Highland 
Light, whose white tower we had seen rising out of the 
bank in front of us for the last mile or two. It is four- 
teen miles from the Nauset Lights, on what is called 
the Clay Pounds, an immense bed of clay abutting on 
the Atlantic, and, as the keeper told us, stretching quite 
across the Cape, which is here only about two miles 
wide. We perceived at once a difference in the soil, 
for there was an interruption of the desert, and a sHght 
appearance of a sod under our feet, such as we had not 
seen for the last two days. 

After arranging to lodge at the light-house, we ram- 
bled across the Cape to the Bay, over a singularly bleak 
and barren-looking country, consisting of rounded hills 
and hollows, called by geologists diluvial elevations and 
depressions, — a kind of scenery which has been com- 
pared to a chopped sea, though this suggests too sud- 



128 CAPE COD. 

den a transition. There is a delineation of this very 
landscape in Hitchcock's Report on the Geology of 
Massachusetts, a work which, by its size at least, 
reminds one of a diluvial elevation itself. Looking 
southward from the light-house, the Cape appeared 
like an elevated plateau, sloping very regularly, 
though slightly, downward from the edge of the bank 
on the Atlantic side, about one hundred and fifty feet 
above the ocean, to that on the Bay side. On travers- 
ing this we found it to be interrupted by broad valleys 
or gullies, which become the hollows in the bank when 
the sea has worn up to them. They are commonly 
at right angles with the shore, and often extend quite 
across the Cape. Some of the valleys, however, are 
circular, a hundred feet deep without any outlet, as if 
the Cape had sunk in those places, or its sands had 
run out. The few scattered houses which we passed, 
being placed at the bottom of the hollows for shelter 
and fertihty, were, for the most part, concealed entirely, 
as much as if they had been swallowed up in the earth. 
Even a village with its meeting-house, which we had 
left little more than a stone's throw behind, had sunk 
into the earth, spire and all, and we saw only the sur- 
face of the upland and the sea on either hand. When 
approaching it, we had mistaken the belfry for a 
summer-house on the plain. We began to think that 
we might tumble into a village before we were aware 
of it, as into an ant-Hon's hole, and be drawn into the 
sand irrecoverably. The most conspicuous objects 
on the land were a distant windmill, or a meeting- 
house standing alone, for only they could afford to 
occupy an exposed place. A great part of the town- 
ship, however, is a barren, heath-like plain, and 



ACROSS THE CAPE. 1 29 

perhaps one third of it lies in common, though the 
property of individuals. The author of the old 
"Description of Truro," speaking of the soil, says: 
*'The snow, which would be of essential service to it 
provided it lay level and covered the ground, is blown 
into drifts and into the sea." This pecuKar open 
country, with here and there a patch of shrubbery, 
extends as much as seven miles, or from Pamet River 
on the south to High Head on the north, and from 
Ocean to Bay. To walk over it makes on a stranger 
such an impression as being at sea, and he finds it 
impossible to estimate distances in any weather. 
A windmill or a herd of cows may seem to be far 
away in the horizon, yet, after going a few rods, he 
will be close upon them. He is also deluded by other 
kinds of mirage. When, in the summer, I saw a 
family a-blueberrying a mile off, walking about amid 
the dwarfish bushes which did not come up higher 
than their ankles, they seemed to me to be a race of 
giants, twenty feet high at least. 

The highest and sandiest portion next the Atlantic 
was thinly covered with Beach-grass and Indigo-weed. 
Next to this the surface of the upland generally con- 
sisted of white sand and gravel, like coarse salt, through 
which a scanty vegetation found its way up. It will 
give an ornithologist some idea of its barrenness if I 
mention that the next June, the month of grass, I 
found a night-hawk's eggs there, and that ahnost any 
square rod thereabouts, taken at random, would be 
an ehgible site for such a deposit. The kildeer- 
plover, which loves a similar locality, also drops its 
eggs there, and fills the air above with its din. This 
upland also produced Cladonia lichens, poverty- 



130 CAPE COD. 

grass, savory-leaved aster {Diplopappus linariifolius), 
mouse-ear, bearberry, &c. On a few hillsides the 
savory-leaved aster and mouse-ear alone made quite 
a dense sward, said to be very pretty when the aster is 
in bloom. In some parts the two species of poverty- 
grass {Hudsonia tomentosa and ericoides), which 
deserve a better name, reign for miles in httle hemi- 
spherical tufts or islets, like moss, scattered over the 
waste. They Hnger in bloom there till the middle of 
July. Occasionally near the beach these rounded 
beds, as also those of the sea-sandwort (Honkenya 
peploides), were filled with sand within an inch of their 
tops, and were hard, Hke large ant-hills, while the 
surrounding sand was soft. In summer, if the poverty- 
grass grows at the head of a Hollow looking toward the 
sea, in a bleak position where the wind rushes up, the 
northern or exposed half of the tuft is sometimes all 
black and dead Hke an oven -broom, while the opposite 
half is yellow with blossoms, the whole hillside thus 
presenting a remarkable contrast when seen from the 
poverty-stricken and the flourishing side. This plant, 
which in many places would be esteemed an orna- 
ment, is here despised by many on account of its 
being associated with barrenness. It might well be 
adopted for the Barnstable coat-of-arms, in a field 
sableux. I should be proud of it. Here and there 
were tracts of Beach-grass mingled with the Sea-side 
Golden-rod and Beach-pea, which reminded us still 
more forcibly of the ocean. 

We read that there was not a brook in Truro. Yet 
there were deer here once, which must often have panted 
in vain ; but I am pretty sure that I afterward saw a 
small fresh-water brook emptying into the south side of 



AC/? OSS THE CAPE. I3I 

Pamet River, though I was so heedless as not to taste 
it. At any rate, a little boy near by told me that he 
drank at it. There was not a tree as far as we could 
sec, and that was many miles each way, the general 
level of the upland being about the same everywhere. 
Even from the Atlantic side we overlooked the Bay, 
and saw to Manomet Point in Plymouth, and better 
from that side because it was the highest. The almost 
universal bareness and smoothness of the landscape 
were as agreeable as novel, making it so much the 
more Hke the deck of a vessel. We saw vessels saihng 
south into the Bay, on the one hand, and north along 
the Atlandc shore, on the other, all with an aft wind. 

The single road which runs lengthwise the Cape, 
now winding over the plain, now through the shrubbery 
which scrapes the wheels of the stage, was a mere cart- 
track in the sand, commonly without any fences to con- 
fine it, and continually changing from this side to that, 
to harder ground, or sometimes to avoid the tide. But 
the inhabitants travel the waste here and there pilgrim - 
wise and staff in hand, by narrow footpaths, through 
which the sand flows out and reveals the nakedness of 
the land. We shuddered at the thought of Hving there 
and taking our afternoon walks over those barren 
swells, where we could overlook every step of our walk 
before taking it, and would have to pray for a fog or a 
snow-storm to conceal our destiny. The walker 
there must soon eat his heart. 

In the north part of the town there is no house from 
shore to shore for several miles, and it is as wild and 
solitary as the Western Prairies — used to be. Indeed, 
one who has seen every house in Truro w^ill be sur- 
prised to hear of the number of the inhabitants, but 



132 CAPE COD. 

perhaps five hundred of the men and boys of this small 
town were then abroad on their fishing grounds. 
Only a few men stay at home to till the sand or watch 
for blackfish. The farmers are fishermen -farmers 
and understand better ploughing the sea than the land. 
They do not disturb their sands much, though there is 
a plenty of sea-weed in the creeks, to say nothing of 
blackfish occasionally rotting on the shore. Between 
the Pond and East Harbor Village there was an 
interesting plantation of pitch-pines, twenty or thirty 
acres in extent, Hke those which we had already seen 
from the stage. One who Hved near said that the land 
was purchased by two men for a shilling or twenty- 
five cents an acre. Some is not considered worth 
writing a deed for. This soil or sand, which was 
partially covered with poverty and beach grass, sorrel, 
&c., was furrowed at intervals of about four feet and 
the seed dropped by a machine. The pines had come 
up admirably and grown the first year three or four 
inches, and the second six inches and more. Where 
the seed had been lately planted the white sand was 
freshly exposed in an endless furrow winding round 
and round the sides of the deep hollows, in a vortical 
spiral manner, which produced a very singular effect, 
as if you were looking into the reverse side of a vast 
banded shield. This experiment, so important to the 
Cape, appeared very successful, and perhaps the time 
will come when the greater part of this kind of land 
in Barnstable County will be thus covered with an 
artificial pine forest, as has been done in some parts of 
France. In that country 12,500 acres of downs had 
been thus covered in 181 1 near Bayonne. They are 
called pignadas, and according to Loudon ''con- 



ACROSS THE CAPE. 1 33 

stitute the principal riches of the inhabitants, where 
there was a drifting desert before." It seemed a 
nobler kind of grain to raise than corn even. 

A few years ago Truro was remarkable among the 
Cape towns for the number of sheep raised in it ; but I 
was told that at this time only two men kept sheep in 
the town, and in 1855, a Truro boy ten years old told 
me that he had never seen one. They were formerly 
pastured on the un fenced lands or general fields, 
but now the owners were more particular to assert 
their rights, and it cost too much for fencing. The 
rails are cedar from Maine, and two rails will answer 
for ordinary purposes, but four are required for sheep. 
This was the reason assigned by one who had formerly 
kept them for not keeping them any longer. Fencing 
stuff is so expensive that I saw fences made with only 
one rail, and very often the rail when spht was care- 
fully tied with a string. In one of the villages I saw 
the next summer a cow tethered by a rope six rods 
long, the rope long in proportion as the feed was short 
and thin. Sixty rods, ay, all the cables of the Cape, 
would have been no more than fair. Tethered in the 
desert for fear that she would get into Arabia Felix ! 
I helped a man weigh a bundle of hay which he was 
seUing to his neighbor, holding one end of a pole from 
which it swung by a steel-yard hook, and this was 
just half his whole crop. In short, the country 
looked so barren that I several times refrained from 
asking the inhabitants for a string or a piece of wrap- 
ping-paper, for fear I should rob them, for they plainly 
were obhged to import these things as well as rails, 
and where there were no news-boys, I did not see 
what they would do for waste paper. 



134 ^'^^^ ^'^^• 

The objects around us, the make-shifts of fishermen 
ashore, often made us look down to see if we were stand- 
ing on terra firma. In the wells everywhere a block 
and tackle were used to raise the bucket, instead of a 
windlass, and by almost every house was laid up a spar 
or a plank or two full of auger-holes, saved from a 
wreck. The windmills were partly built of these, and 
they were worked into the public bridges. The light- 
house keeper, who was having his bam shingled, told 
me casually that he had made three thousand good 
shingles for that purpose out of a mast. You would 
sometimes see an old oar used for a rail. Frequently 
also some fair-weather finery ripped ofT a vessel by a 
storm near the coast was nailed up against an outhouse. 
I saw fastened to a shed near the light-house a long 
new sign with the words "Anglo Saxon" on it in 
large gilt letters, as if it were a useless part which the 
ship could afford to lose, or which the sailors had dis- 
charged at the same time with the pilot. But it 
interested somewhat as if it had been a part of the 
Argo, cHpped off in passing through the Symplegades. 

To the fisherman, the Cape itself is a sort of store- 
ship laden with suppHes, — a safer and larger craft 
which carries the women and children, the old men and 
the sick, and indeed sea-phrases are as common on it as 
on board a vessel. Thus is it ever with a sea-going 
people. The old Northmen used to speak of the 
"keel-ridge" of the country, that is, the ridge of the 
Doffrafield Mountains, as if the land were a boat 
turned bottom up. I was frequently reminded of the 
Northmen here. The inhabitants of the Cape are 
often at once farmers and sea-rovers; they are more 
than vikings or kings of the bays, for their sway ex- 



ACROSS THE CAPE. 



135 



tends over the open sea also. A farmer in Wellfleet, 
at whose house I afterward spent a night, who had 
raised fifty bushels of potatoes the previous year, 
which is a large crop for the Cape, and had extensive 
salt-works, pointed to his schooner, which lay in sight, 
in which he and his man and boy occasionally ran 
down the coast a-trading as far as the Capes of Vir- 
ginia. This was his market-cart, and his hired man 
knew how to steer her. Thus he drove two teams 
a-tield, 

"ere the high seas appeared 
Under the opening eyelids of the morn." 

Though probably he would not hear much of the "gray 
fly" on his way to Virginia. 

A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are 
always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean 
highway or other, and the history of one of their ordi- 
nary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into 
the shade. I have just heard of a Cape Cod captain 
who was expected home in the beginning of the winter 
from the West Indies, but was long since given up for 
lost, till his relations at length have heard with joy, 
that, after getting within forty miles of Cape Cod light, 
he was driven back by nine successive gales to Key 
West, between Florida and Cuba, and was once again 
shaping his course for home. Thus he spent his 
winter. In ancient times the adventures of these two 
or three men and boys would have been made the basis 
of a myth, but now such tales are crowded into a line 
of short-hand signs, Hke an algebraic formula in the 
shipping news. "Wherever over the world," said 
Palfrey in his oration at Barnstable, "you see the stars 



136 



CAPE COD. 



and stripes floating, you may have good hope that 
beneath them some one will be found who can tell 
you the soundings of Barnstable, or Wellfleet, or 
Chatham Harbor." 

I passed by the home of somebody's (or everybody's) 
Uncle Bill, one day over on the Plymouth shore. It 
was a schooner half keeled-up on the mud : we aroused 
the master out of a sound sleep at noonday, by thump- 
ing on the bottom of his vessel till he presented him- 
self at the hatch-way, for we wanted to borrow his 
clam-digger. Meaning to make him a call, I looked 
out the next morning, and lo ! he had run over to 
"the Pines" the evening before, fearing an easterly 
storm. He outrode the great gale in the spring of 
185 1, dashing about alone in Plymouth Bay. He 
goes after rock weed, hghters vessels, and saves 
-wrecks. I still saw him lying in the mud over at 
"the Pines" in the horizon, which place he could not 
leave if he would, till flood tide. But he would not 
then probably. This waiting for the tide is a singular 
feature in life by the sea-shore. A frequent answer 
is, "Well ! you can't start for two hours yet." It 
is something new to a landsman, and at first he is not 
disposed to wait. History says that "two inhabitants 
of Truro were the first who adventured to the Falkland 
Isles in pursuit of whales. This voyage was under- 
taken in the year 1774, by the advice of Admiral 
Montague of the British navy, and was crowned with 
success." 

At the Pond Village we saw a pond three eighths of 
a mile long densely filled with cat-tail flags, seven feet 
high, — enough for all the coopers in New England. 

The western shore was nearly as sandy as the east- 



ACROSS THE CAPE. 137 

ern, but the water was much smoother, and the bottom 
was partially covered with the slender grass-like sea- 
weed (Zostera), which we had not seen on the Altantic 
side ; there were also a few rude sheds for trying fish 
on the beach there, which made it appear less wild. 
In the few marshes on this side we afterward saw 
Samphire, Rosemary, and other plants new to us 
inlanders. 

In the summer and fall sometimes, hundreds of 
blackfish (the Social Whale, Glohicephalus Melas 
of De Kay; called also Black Whale-fish, Howling 
Whale, Bottlehead, &c.), fifteen feet or more in length, 
are driven ashore in a single school here. I witnessed 
such a scene in July, 1855. A carpenter who was 
working at the light-house arriving early in the morn- 
ing remarked that he did not know but he had lost fifty 
dollars by coming to his work ; for as he came along 
the Bay side he heard them driving a school of black - 
fish ashore, and he had debated with himself whether 
he should not go and join them and take his share, 
but had concluded to come to his work. After break- 
fast I came over to this place, about two miles distant, 
and near the beach met some of the fishermen returning 
from their chase. Looking up and down the shore, 
I could see about a mile south some large black masses 
on the sand, which I knew must be blackfish, and a 
man or two about them. As I walked along towards 
them I soon came to a huge carcass whose head was 
gone and whose blubber had been stripped off some 
weeks before; the tide was just beginning to move 
it, and the stench compelled me to go a long way 
round. When I came to Great Hollow I found a fish- 
erman and some boys on the watch, and counted 



138 CAPE COD. 

about thirty blackfish, just killed, with many lance 
wounds, and the water was more or less bloody 
around. They were partly on shore and partly 
in the water, held by a rope round their tails till 
the tide should leave them. A boat had been 
somewhat stove by the tail of one. They were a 
smooth shining black, like India-rubber, and had 
remarkably simple and lumpish forms for animated 
creatures, with a blunt round snout or head, whale- 
like, and simple stiff-looking flippers. The largest 
were about fifteen feet long, but one or two were 
only five feet long, and still without teeth. The 
fisherman slashed one with his jackknife, to show 
me how thick the blubber was, — about three inches; 
and as I passed my finger through the cut it was 
covered thick w^ith oil. The blubber looked 
like pork, and this man said that when they were 
trying it the boys would sometimes come round 
with a piece of bread in one hand, and take a 
piece of blubber in the other to eat with it, 
preferring it to pork scraps. He also cut into the 
flesh beneath, which was firm and red Hke beef, and 
he said that for his part he preferred it when fresh to 
beef. It is stated that in 18 12 blackfish were used as 
food by the poor of Bretagne. They w^ere waiting 
for the tide to leave these fishes high and dry, that 
they might strip off the blubber and carry it to their 
try -works in their boats, where they try it on the beach. 
They get commonly a barrel of oil, worth fifteen or 
twenty dollars, to a fish. There were many lances 
and harpoons in the boats, — much slenderer instru- 
ments that I had expected. An old man came along 
the beach with a horse and wagon distributing the 



ACROSS THE CAPE. 



139 



dinners of the fishennen, which their wives had put 
up in little pails and ]\y.?,s, and which he had collected 
in the Pond Village, and for this service, I suppose, he 
received a share of the oil. If one could not tell his 
own pail, he took the first he came to. 

As I stood there they raised the cry of "another 
school," and we could see their black backs and their 
blowing about a mile northward, as they went leaping 
over the sea like horses. Some boats were already in 
pursuit there, driving them toward the beach. Other 
fishermen and boys running up began to jump into the 
boats and push them off from where I stood, and I 
might have gone too had I chosen. Soon there were 
twenty-five or thirty boats in pursuit, some large ones 
under sail, and others rowing with might and main, 
keeping outside of the school, those nearest to the 
fishes striking on the sides of their boats and blowing 
horns to drive them on to the beach. It was an 
exciting race. If they succeed in driving them ashore 
each boat takes one share, and then each man, but if 
they are compelled to strike them off shore each 
boat's company take what they strike. I walked 
rapidly along the shore toward the north, while the 
fishermen were rowing still more swiftly to join their 
companions, and a little boy who walked by my side 
was congratulating himself that his father's boat was 
beating another one. An old blind fisherman whom 
we met, inquired, "Where are they? I can't see. Have 
they got them?" In the mean while the fishes had 
turned and were escaping northward toward Province- 
town, only occasionally the back of one being seen. 
So the nearest crews were compelled to strike them, 
and we saw several boats soon made fast, each to its 



140 CAPE COD. 

fish, which, four or five rods ahead, was drawing it 
like a race-horse straight toward the beach, leaping 
half out of water, blowing blood and water from its 
hole, and leaving a streak of foam behind. But they 
went ashore too far north for us, though we could see 
the fishermen leap out and lance them on the sand. It 
was just Uke pictures of whaHng which I have seen, 
and a fisherman told me that it was nearly as danger- 
ous. In his first trial he had been much excited, and 
in his haste had used a lance with its scabbard on, 
but nevertheless had thrust it quite through his fish. 

I learned that a few days before this one hundred 
and eighty blackfish had been driven ashore in one 
school at Eastham, a little farther south, and that the 
keeper of BiUingsgate Point Hght went out one morn- 
ing about the same time and cut his initials on the 
backs of a large school which had run ashore in the 
night, and sold his right to them to Provincetown for 
one thousand dollars, and probably Provincetown 
made as much more. Another fisherman told me 
that nineteen years ago three hundred and eighty 
were driven ashore in one school at Great Hollow. 
In the Naturalists' Library, it is said that, in the winter 
of 1809-10, one thousand one hundred and ten 
"approached the shore of Hralfiord, Iceland, and were 
captured." De Kay says it is not known why they 
are stranded. But one fisherman declared to me that 
they ran ashore in pursuit of squid, and that they 
generally came on the coast about the last of July. 

About a week afterward, when I came to this shore, 
it was strewn as far as I could see with a glass, with 
the carcasses of blackfish stripped of their blubber and 
their heads cut ofif ; the latter lying higher up. Walk- 



ACROSS THE CAPE. 14 1 

ing on the beach was out of the question on account of 
the stench. Between Provincetown and Truro they lay 
in the very path of the stage. Yet no steps were taken to 
abate the nuisance, and men were catching lobsters as 
usual just off the shore. I was told that they did some- 
times tow them out and sink them; yet I wondered where 
they got the stones to sink them with. Of course they 
might be made into guano, and Cape Cod is not so fer- 
tile that her inhabitants can afford to do without this ma- 
nure, — to say nothingof the diseases they may produce. 
After my return home, wishing to learn what was 
known about the Blackfish, I had recourse to the re- 
ports of the zoological surveys of the State, and I 
found that Storer had rightfully omitted it in his 
Report on the Fishes, since it is not a fish ; so I turned 
to Emmons's Report of the Mammalia, but was sur- 
prised to find that the seals and whales were omitted 
by him, because he had had no opportunity to observe 
them. Considering how this State has risen and 
thriven by its fisheries, — that the legislature which 
authorized the Zoological Survey sat under the emblem 
of a codfish, — that Nantucket and New Bedford are 
within our limits, — that an early riser may find a 
thousand or fifteen hundred dollars' worth of black - 
fish on the shore in a morning, — that the Pilgrims 
saw the Indians cutting up a blackfish on the shore 
at Eastham, and called a part of that shore "Gram- 
pus Bay," from the number of blackfish they found 
there, before they got to Plymouth, — and that from 
that time to this these fishes have continued to enrich 
one or two counties almost annually, and that their 
decaying carcasses were now poisoning the air of one 
county for more than thirty miles, — I thought it 



142 CAPE COD. 

remarkable that neither the popular nor scientific 
name was to be found in a report on our mammalia, — 
a catalogue of the productions of our land and water. 

We had here, as well as all across the Cape, a fair 
view of Provincetown, five or six miles distant over the 
water toward the west, under its shrubby sand-hills, 
with its harbor now full of vessels whose masts mingled 
with the spires of its churches, and gave it the appear- 
ance of a quite large seaport town. 

The inhabitants of all the lower Cape towns enjoy 
thus the prospect of two seas. Standing on the western 
or larboard shore, and looking across to where the dis- 
tant mainland looms, they can say. This is Massachu- 
setts Bay; and then, after an hour's sauntering walk, 
they may stand on the starboard side, beyond which no 
land is seen to loom, and say, This is the Atlantic Ocean. 

On our way back to the light-house, by whose white- 
washed tower we steered as securely as the mariner 
by its light at night, we passed through a graveyard, 
which apparently was saved from being blown away 
by its slates, for they had enabled a thick bed of huckle- 
berry-bushes to root themselves amid the graves. We 
thought it would be worth the while to read the epi- 
taphs where so many were lost at sea; however, as not 
only their lives, but commonly their bodies also, were 
lost or not identified, there were fewer epitaphs of this 
sort than we expected, though there were not a few. 
Their graveyard is the ocean. Near the eastern side 
we started up a fox in a hollow, the only kind of wild 
quadruped, if I except a skunk in a salt-marsh, that 
we saw in all our walk (unless painted and box tor- 
toises may be called quadrupeds). He was a large, 
plump, shaggy fellow, like a yellow dog, with, as 



ACROSS THE CAPE. 1 43 

usual, a white tip to his tail, and looked as if he fared 
well on the Cape. He cantered away into the shrub- 
oaks and bayberry-bushes which chanced to grow 
there, but were hardly high enough to conceal him. 
I saw another the next summer leaping over the top of a 
beach-plum a httle farther north, a small arc of his 
course (which I trust is not yet run), from which I 
endeavored in vain to calculate his whole orbit : 
there were too many unknown attractions to be 
allowed for. I also saw the exuviae of a third fast 
sinking into the sand, and added the skull to my col- 
lection. Hence I concluded that they must be plenty 
thereabouts; but a traveller may meet with more 
than an inhabitant, since he is more likely to take an 
unfrequented route across the country. They told me 
that in some years they died off in great numbers by a 
kind of madness, under the effect of which they were 
seen whirhng round and round as if in pursuit of their 
tails. In Crantz's account of Greenland, he says: 
"They (the foxes) live upon birds and their eggs, and, 
when they can't get them, upon crow-berries, mussels, 
crabs, and what the sea casts out." 

Just before reaching the light-house, we saw the sun 
set in the Bay, — for standing on that narrow Cape 
was, as I have saidj like being on the deck of a vessel, 
or rather at the masthead of a man-of-war, thirty miles 
at sea, though we knew that at the same moment the 
sun was setting behind our native hills, which were 
just below the horizon in that direction. This sight 
drove everything else quite out of our heads, and 
Homer and the Ocean came in again with a rush, — 

'Ev 8' €7r€cr' *Q,K€.av(2 Xa/XTrpov <^ao9 rjeXiOLO, 
the shining torch of the sun fell into the ocean. 



VIII. 

THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 

This light -house, known to mariners as the Cape 
Cod or Highland Light, is one of our "primary sea- 
coast lights," and is usually the first seen by those 
approaching the entrance of Massachusetts Bay from 
Europe. It is forty-three miles from Cape Ann Light, 
and forty-one from Boston Light. It stands about 
twenty rods from the edge of the bank, which is here 
formed of clay. I borrowed the plane and square, 
level and dividers, of a carpenter who was shingling 
a barn near by, and using one of those shingles made 
of a mast, contrived a rude sort of quadrant, with 
pins for sights and pivots, and got the angle of eleva- 
tion of the Bank opposite the light-house, and with a 
couple of cod-lines the length of its slope, and so meas- 
ured its height on the shingle. It rises one hundred 
and ten feet above its immediate base, or about one 
hundred and twenty-three feet above mean low water. 
Graham, who has carefully surveyed the extremity of 
the Cape, makes it one hundred and thirty feet. 
The mixed sand and clay lay at an angle of forty 
degrees with the horizon, where I measured it, but the 
clay is generally much steeper. No cow nor hen ever 
gets down it. Half a mile farther south the bank is 
fifteen or twenty-five feet higher, and that appeared to 
144 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 1 45 

be the highest land in North Truro. Even this vast 
clay bank is fast v^earing away. Small streams of 
water trickling down it at intervals of two or three rods, 
have left the intermediate clay in the form of steep 
Gothic roofs fifty feet high or more, the ridges as sharp 
and rugged-looking as rocks; and in one place the 
bank is curiously eaten out in the form of a large 
semicircular crater. 

According to the light-house keeper, the Cape is 
wasting here on both sides, though most on the eastern. 
In some places it had lost many rods within the last 
year, and, erelong, the light-house must be moved. 
We calculated, from his data, how soon the Cape would 
be quite worn away at this point, "for," said he, "I 
can remember sixty years back." We were even 
more surprised at this last announcement, — that is, 
at the slow waste of hfe and energy in our informant, 
for we had taken him to be not more than forty, — 
than at the rapid wasting of the Cape, and we thought 
that he stood a fair chance to outlive the former. 

Between this October and June of the next year, I 
found that the bank had lost about forty feet in one 
place, opposite the light-house, and it was cracked 
more than forty feet farther from the edge at the last 
date, the shore being strewn with the recent rubbish. 
But I judged that generally it was not wearing away 
here at the rate of more than six feet annually. Any 
conclusions drawn from the observations of a few 
years or one generation only are likely to prove false, 
and the Cape may balk expectation by its durability. 
In some places even a wrecker's foot-path down the 
bank lasts several years. One old inhabitant told us 
that when the light-house was built, in 1798, it was 



146 CAPE COD. 

calculated that it would stand forty-five years, allowing 
the bank to waste one length of fence each year, 
*'but," said he, "there it is" (or rather another near 
the same site, about twenty rods from the edge of the 
bank). 

The sea is not gaining on the Cape everywhere, for 
one man told me of a vessel wrecked long ago on the 
north of Provincetown whose " 6<>wg5 " (this was his 
word) are still visible many rods within the present 
line of the beach, half buried in sand. Perchance 
they lie alongside the timbers of a whale. The general 
statement of the inhabitants is, that the Cape is 
wasting on both sides, but extending itself on particular 
points on the south and west, as at Chatham and 
Monomoy Beaches, and at Billingsgate, Long, and 
Race Points. James Freeman stated in his day that 
above three miles had been added to Monomoy 
Beach during the previous fifty years, and it is said 
to be still extending as fast as ever. A writer in the 
Massachusetts Magazine, in the last century, tells us 
that "when the EngHsh first settled upon the Cape, 
there was an island off Chatham, at three leagues' 
distance, called Webbs' Island, containing twenty 
acres, covered with red -cedar or savin. The inhabit- 
ants of Nantucket used to carry wood from it;" but 
he adds that in his day a large rock alone marked the 
spot, and the water was six fathoms deep there. 
The entrance to Nauset Harbor, which was once in 
Eastham, has now travelled south into Orleans. The 
islands in Wellfleet Harbor once formed a continuous 
beach, though now small vessels pass between them. 
And so of many other parts of this coast. 

Perhaps what the Ocean takes from one part of the 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 1 47 

Cape it gives to another, — robs Peter to pay Paul. 
On the eastern side the sea appears to be everywhere 
encroaching on the land. Not only the land is under- 
mined, and its ruins carried off by currents, but the 
sand is blown from the beach directly up the steep 
bank where it is one hundred and fifty feet high, and 
covers the original surface there many feet deep. If 
you sit on the edge you will have ocular demonstration 
of this by soon getting your eyes full. Thus the bank 
preserves its height as fast as it is worn away. This 
sand is steadily travelling westward at a rapid rate, 
"more than a hundred yards," says one writer, within 
the memory of inhabitants now living; so that in some 
places peat-meadows are buried deep under the sand, 
and the peat is cut through it; and in one place a 
large peat-meadow has made its appearance on the 
shore in the bank covered many feet deep, and peat 
has been cut there. This accounts for that great 
pebble of peat which we saw in the surf. The old 
oysterman had told us that many years ago he lost 
a ''crittur" by her being mired in a swamp near the 
Atlantic side east of his house, and twenty years ago 
he lost the swamp itself entirely, but has since seen 
signs of it appearing on the beach. He also said that 
he had seen cedar stumps ''as big as cart-wheels" ( !) 
on the bottom of the Bay, three miles off Billings- 
gate Point, when leaning over the side of his boat in 
pleasant weather, and that that was dry land not long 
ago. Another told us that a log canoe known to have 
been buried many years before on the Bay side at 
East Harbor in Truro, where the Cape is extremely 
narrow, appeared at length on the Atlantic side, the 
Cape having rolled over it, and an old woman said, — 



148 CAPE COD. 

"Now, you see, it is true what I told you, that the Cape 
is moving." 

The bars along the coast shift with every storm, and 
in many places there is occasionally none at all. We 
ourselves observed the effect of a single storm with a 
high tide in the night, in July, 1855. It moved the 
sand on the beach opposite the light-house to the depth 
of six feet, and three rods in width as far as we could 
see north and south, and carried it bodily off no one 
knows exactly where, laying bare in one place a large 
rock five feet high which was invisible before, and 
narrowing the beach to that extent. There is usually, 
as I have said, no bathing on the back-side of the Cape, 
on account of the undertow, but when we were there 
last, the sea had, three months before, cast up a bar 
near this light-house, two miles long and ten rods 
wide, over which the tide did not flow, leaving a 
narrow cove, then a quarter of a mile long, between it 
and the shore, which afforded excellent bathing. 
This cove had from time to time been closed up as the 
bar travelled northward, in one instance imprisoning 
four or five hundred whiting and cod, which died there, 
and the water as often turned fresh and finally gave 
place to sand. This bar, the inhabitants assured us, 
might be wholly removed, and the water six feet deep 
there in two or three days. 

The light-house keeper said that when the wind 
blowed strong on to the shore, the waves ate fast into 
the bank, but when it blowed off they took no sand 
away ; for in the former case the wind heaped up the 
surface of the water next to the beach, and to preserve 
its equihbrium a strong undertow immediately set 
back again into the sea which carried with it the sand 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 149 

and whatever else was in the way, and left the beach 
hard to walk on; but in the latter case the under- 
tow set on, and carried the sand with it, so that it was 
particularly difficult for shipwrecked men to get to 
land when the wind blowed on to the shore, but 
easier when it blowed off. This undertow, meeting 
the next surface wave on the bar which itself has 
made, forms part of the dam over which the latter 
breaks, as over an upright wall. The sea thus plays 
with the land holding a sand-bar in its mouth awhile 
before it swallows it, as a cat plays with a mouse; 
but the fatal gripe is sure to come at last. The sea 
sends its rapacious east wind to rob the land, but 
before the former has got far with its prey, the land 
sends its honest west wind to recover some of its 
own. But, according to Lieutenant Davis, the forms, 
extent, and distribution of sand-bars and banks are 
principally determined, not by winds and waves, but 
by tides. 

Our host said that you would be surprised if you 
were on the beach when the wind blew a hurricane 
directly on to it, to see that none of the drift-wood 
came ashore, but all was carried directly northward and 
parallel with the shore as fast as a man can walk, 
by the inshore current, which sets strongly in that 
direction at flood tide. The strongest swimmers also 
are carried along with it, and never gain an inch toward 
the beach. Even a large rock has been moved half 
a mile northward along the beach. He assured us 
that the sea was never still on the back -side of the 
Cape, but ran commonly as high as your head, so that 
a great part of the time you could not launch a boat 
there, and even in the calmest weather the waves 



150 CAPE COD. 

run six or eight feet up the beach, though then you 
could get off on a plank. Cham plain and Pourtrin- 
court could not land here in 1606, on account of 
the swell {la houlle), yet the savages came off to them 
in a canoe. In the Sieur de la Borde's ''Relation des 
Caraibes," my edition of which was published at Am- 
sterdam in 1 71 1, at page 530 he says: — 

"Couroumon a Caraibe, also a star [i.e. a god], 
makes the great lames a la mer, and overturns canoes. 
Lames a la mer are the long vagues which are not 
broken (entrecoupees), and such as one sees come to 
land all in one piece, from one end of a beach to 
another, so that, however little wind there may be, a 
shallop or a canoe could hardly land (aborder terre) 
without turning over, or being filled with water." 

But on the Bay side the water even at its edge 
is often as smooth and still as in a pond. Commonly 
there are no boats used along this beach. There was 
a boat belonging to the Highland Light which the 
next keeper after he had been there a year had not 
launched, though he said that there was good fishing 
just off the shore. Generally the Life Boats cannot 
be used when needed. When the waves run very 
high it is impossible to get a boat off, however skilfully 
you steer it, for it will often be completely covered by 
the curving edge of the approaching breaker as- by an 
arch, and so filled with water, or it will be lifted up by 
its bows, turned directly over backwards and all the 
contents spilled out. A spar thirty feet long is served 
in the same way. 

I heard of a party who went off fishing back of Well- 
fleet some years ago, in two boats, in calm weather, 
who, when they had laden their boats with fish, and 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT, 151 

approached the land n^nin, found such a swell break- 
ing; on it, though there was no wind, that they were 
afraid to enter it. At first they thought to pull for 
Provincetown, but night was coming on, and that was 
many miles distant. Their case seemed a desperate 
one. As often as they approached the shore and 
saw the terrible breakers that intervened, they were 
deterred. In short, they were thoroughly frightened. 
Finally, having thrown their fish overboard, those in 
one boat chose a favorable opportunity, and succeeded, 
by skill and good luck, in reaching the land, but they 
were unwilling to take the responsibility of telling 
the others when to come in, and as the other helmsman 
was inexperienced, their boat was swamped at once, 
yet all managed to save themselves. 

Much smaller waves soon make a boat ''nail-sick," 
as the phrase is. The keeper said that after a long 
and strong blow there would be three large waves, 
each successively larger than the last, and then no 
large ones for some time, and that, when they wished 
to land in a boat, they came in on the last and largest 
wave. Sir Thomas Browne (as quoted in Brand's 
Popular Antiquities, p. 372), on the subject of the 
tenth wave being "greater or more dangerous than 
any other," after quoting Ovid, — 

"Qui venit hie fluctus, fluctus supereminet omnes 
Posterior nono est, undecimo que prior," — 

says, "Which, notwithstanding, is evidently false; nor 
can it be made out either by observation either upon the 
shore or the ocean, as we have with diligence explored 
in both. And surely in vain we expect regularity in 
the waves of the sea, or in the particular motions 



152 CAPE COD, 

thereof, as we may in its general reciprocations, 
whose causes are constant, and effects therefore cor- 
respondent; whereas its fluctuations are but motions 
subservient, which winds, storms, shores, shelves, and 
every interjacency, irregulates." 

We read that the Clay Pounds were so called, "be- 
cause vessels have had the misfortune to be pounded 
against it in gales of wind," which we regard as a doubt- 
ful derivation. There are small ponds here, upheld by 
the clay, which were formerly called the Clay Pits. 
Perhaps this, or Clay Ponds, is the origin of the name. 
Water is found in the clay quite near the surface ; but 
we heard of one man who had sunk a well in the sand 
close by, "till he could see stars at noonday," without 
finding any. Over this bare Highland the wind has 
full sweep. Even in July it blows the wings over the 
heads of the young turkeys, which do not know enough 
to head against it ; and in gales the doors and windows 
are blown in, and you must hold on to the Hght-house 
to prevent being blown into the Atlantic. They who 
merely keep out on the beach in a storm in the winter 
are sometimes rewarded by the Humane Society. 
If you would feel the full force of a tempest, take up 
your residence on the top of Mount Washington, or at 
the Highland Light, in Truro. 

It was said in 1794 that more vessels were cast away 
on the east shore of Truro than anywhere in Barn- 
stable County. Notwithstanding that this light-house 
has since been erected, after almost every storm we 
read of one or more vessels wrecked here, and some- 
times more than a dozen wrecks are visible from this 
point at one time. The inhabitants hear the crash of 
vessels going to pieces as they sit round their hearths, 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 1 53 

and they commonly date from some memorable ship- 
wreck. If the history of this beach could be written 
from beginning to end, it would be a thrilling page in 
the history of commerce. 

Truro was settled in the year 1700 as Danger-field. 
This was a very appropriate name, for I afterward read 
on a monument in the graveyard, near Pamet River, 
the following inscription : — 

Sacred 

to the memory of 

57 citizens of Truro, 

who were lost in seven 

vessels, which 

foundered at sea in 

the memorable gale 

of Oct. 3d, 1841. 

Their names and ages by families were recorded on dif- 
ferent sides of the stone. They are said to have been 
lost on George's Bank, and I was told that only one 
vessel drifted ashore on the back -side of the Cape, with 
the boys locked into the cabin and drowned. It is 
said that the homes of all were "within a circuit of 
two miles." Twenty-eight inhabitants of Dennis 
were lost in the same gale; and I read that '' in one 
day, immediately after this storm, nearly or quite 
one hundred bodies were taken up and buried on Cape 
Cod." The Truro Insurance Company failed for 
want of skippers to take charge of its vessels. But 
the surviving inhabitants went a-fishing again the next 
year as usual. I found that it would not do to speak 
of shipwrecks there, for almost every family has lost 
some of its members at sea. "Who Hves in that 
house?" I inquired. "Three widows," was the reply. 



154 



CAPE COD. 



The stranger and the inhabitant view the shore with 
very different eyes. The former may have come to see 
and admire the ocean in a storm ; but the latter looks 
on it as the scene where his nearest relatives were 
wrecked. When I remarked to an old wrecker 
partially blind, \vho was sitting on the edge of the 
bank smoking a pipe, which he had just lit with a 
match of dried beach -grass, that I supposed he liked 
to hear the sound of the surf, he answered: ''No, 
I do not hke to hear the sound of the surf." He had 
lost at least one son in* 'the memorable gale," and 
could tell many a tale of the shipwrecks which he had 
witnessed there. 

In the year 171 7, a noted pirate named Bellamy was 
led on to the bar off Wellfleet by the captain of a snow 
which he had taken, to whom he had offered his vessel 
again if he would pilot him into Provincetown Harbor. 
Tradition says that the latter threw over a burning tar- 
barrel in the night, which drifted ashore, and the 
pirates followed it. A storm coming on, their whole 
fleet was wrecked, and more than a hundred dead 
bodies lay along the shore. Six who escaped ship- 
wreck were executed. "At times to this day" (1793), 
says the historian of Wellfleet, "there are King Will- 
iam and Queen Mary's coppers picked up, and pieces 
of silver called cob-money. The violence of the seas 
moves the sands on the outer bar, so that at times the 
iron caboose of the ship [that is, Bellamy's] at low 
ebbs has been seen." Another tells us that, "For 
many years after this shipwreck, a man of a very 
singular and frightful aspect used every spring and 
autumn to be seen travelling on the Cape, who was 
supposed to have been one of Bellamy's crew. The 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 155 

presumption is that he went to some place where 
money had been secreted by the pirates, to get such a 
supply as his exigencies required. When he died, 
many pieces of gold were found in a girdle which he 
constantly wore." 

As I was walking on the beach here in my last visit, 
looking for shells and pebbles, just after that storm 
which I have mentioned as moving the sand to a great 
depth, not knowing but I might find some cob-money, 
I did actually pick up a French crown piece, worth 
about a dollar and six cents, near high-water mark, 
on the still moist sand, just under the abrupt, caving 
base of the bank. It was of a dark slate color, and 
looked like a flat pebble, but still bore a very distinct 
and handsome head of Louis XV., and the usual 
legend on the reverse. Sit N omen Domini Benedictum 
(Blessed be the Name of the Lord), a pleasing senti- 
ment to read in the sands of the sea -shore, whatever 
it might be stamped on, and I also made out the date, 
1 741. Of course, I thought at first that it was that 
same old button which I have found so many times, 
but my knife soon showed the silver. Afterward, 
rambling on the bars at low tide, I cheated my com- 
panion by holding up round shells (Scutellce) between 
my fingers, whereupon he quickly stripped and cam.e 
off to me. 

In the Revolution, a British ship of war called the 
Somerset was wrecked near the Clay Pounds, and all 
on board, some hundreds in number, were taken 
prisoners. My informant said that he had never 
seen any mention of this in the histories, but that at 
any rate he knew of a silver watch, which one of those 
prisoners by accident left there, which was still going 



156 CAPE COD. 

to tell the story. But this event is noticed by some 
writers. 

The next summer I saw a sloop from Chatham drag- 
ging for anchors and chains just off this shore. She 
had her boats out at the work while she shuffled about 
on various tacks, and, when anything was found, 
drew up to hoist it on board. It is a singular employ- 
ment, at which men are regularly hired and paid for 
their industry, to hunt to-day in pleasant weather for 
anchors which have been lost, — the sunken faith 
and hope of mariners, to which they trusted in vain ; 
now, perchance, it is the rusty one of some old pirate's 
ship or Norman fisherman, whose cable parted here 
two hundred years ago; and now the best bower 
anchor of a Canton or a CaHfomia ship, which has 
gone about her business. If the roadsteads of the 
spiritual ocean could be thus dragged, what rusty 
flukes of hope deceived and parted chain -cables of 
faith might again be windlassed aboard ! enough to 
sink the finder's craft, or stock new navies to the end 
of time. The bottom of the sea is strewn with anchors, 
some deeper and some shallower, and alternately 
covered and uncovered by the sand, perchance with 
a small length of iron cable still attached, — to which 
where is the other end ? So many unconcluded tales 
to be continued another time. So, if we had diving- 
bells adapted to the spiritual deeps, we should see 
anchors with their cables attached, as thick as eels 
in vinegar, all wriggling vainly toward their holding- 
ground. But that is not treasure for us which another 
man has lost; rather it is for us to seek what no 
other man has found or can find, — not be Chatham 
men, dragging for anchors. 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. I 5/ 

The annals of this voracious beach ! who could write 
them, unless it were a shipwrecked sailor? How 
many who have seen it have seen it only in the midst 
of danger and distress, the last strip of earth which 
their mortal eyes beheld. Think of the amount of 
suflfering which a single strand has witnessed. The 
ancients would have represented it as a sea-monster 
with open jaws, more terrible than Scylla and Charyb- 
dis. An inhabitant of Truro told me that about a 
fortnight after the St. John was wrecked at Cohasset 
he found two bodies on the shore at the Clay Pounds. 
They were, those of a man, and a corpulent woman. 
The man had thick boots on, though his head was 
off, but ''it was alongside." It took the finder 
some weeks to get over the sight. Perhaps they were 
man and wife, and whom God had joined the ocean 
currents had not put asunder. Yet by what slight 
accidents at first may they have been associated in 
their drifting. Some of the bodies of those passengers 
were picked up far out at sea, boxed up and sunk; 
some brought ashore and buried. There are more 
consequences to a shipwreck than the underwriters 
notice. The Gulf Stream may return some to their 
native shores, or drop them in some out-of-the-way 
cave of Ocean, where time and the elements will 
write new riddles with their bones. — But to return 
to land again. 

In this bank, above the clay, I counted in the sum- 
mer, two hundred holes of the Bank Swallow within a 
space six rods long, and there were at least one thou- 
sand old birds within three times that distance, twitter- 
ing over the surf. I had never associated them in my 
thoughts with the beach before. One Httle boy who 



158 CAPE COD. 

had been a-birds-nesting had got eighty swallows' 
eggs for his share ! Tell it not to the Humane Society. 
There were many young birds on the clay beneath, 
which had tumbled out and died. Also there were 
many Crow-blackbirds hopping about in the dry 
fields, and the Upland Plover were breeding close by 
the light-house. The keeper had once cut off one's 
wing while mowing, as she sat on her eggs there. 
This is also a favorite resort for gunners in the fall 
to shoot the Golden Plover. As around the shores of 
a pond are seen devil's-needles, butterflies, &c., 
so here, to my surprise, I saw at the same season great 
devil's-needles of a size proportionably larger, or 
nearly as big as my finger, incessantly coasting up and 
down the edge of the bank, and butterflies also were 
hovering over it, and I never saw so many dorr-bugs 
and beetles of various kinds as strewed the beach. 
They had apparently flown over the bank in the night, 
and could not get up again, and some had perhaps 
fallen into the sea and were washed ashore. They 
may have been in part attracted by the Hght-house 
lamps. ' 

The Clay Pounds are a more fertile tract than usual. 
We saw some fine patches of roots and corn here. As 
generally on the Cape, the plants had Httle stalk or 
leaf, but ran remarkably to seed. The corn was 
hardly more than half as high as in the interior, yet 
the ears were large and full, and one farmer told us 
that he could raise forty bushels on an acre without 
manure, and sixty with it. The heads of the rye also 
were remarkably large. The Shadbush {Ame- 
lanchier), Beach Plums, and Blueberries {Vaccinium 
Pennsylvanicum), like the apple-trees and oaks, 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. I 59 

were very dwarfish, spreading over the sand, but at 
the same time very fruitful. The blueberry was but 
an inch or two high, and its fruit often rested on the 
ground, so that you did not suspect the presence of the 
bushes, even on those bare hills, until you were tread- 
ing on them. I thought that this fertility must be 
owing mainly to the abundance of moisture in the 
atmosphere, for I observed that what little grass there 
was was remarkably laden with dew in the morning, 
and in summer dense imprisoning fogs frequently 
last till midday, turning one's beard into a wet napkin 
about his throat, and the oldest inhabitant may lose 
his way within a stone's throw of his house or be obliged 
to follow the beach for a guide. The brick house 
attached to the light-house was exceedingly damp at 
that season, and writing-paper lost all its stiffness in 
it. It was impossible to dry your towel after bathing, 
or to press flowers without their mildewing. The air 
was so moist that we rarely wished to drink, though 
we could at all times taste the salt on our Hps. Salt 
was rarely used at table, and our host told us that his 
cattle invariably refused it when it was offered them, 
they got so much with their grass and at every breath, 
but he said that a sick horse or one just from the 
country would sometimes take a hearty draught of 
salt water, and seemed to Hke it and be the better for it. 
It was surprising to see how much water was con- 
tained in the terminal bud of the sea-side golden-rod, 
standing in the sand early in July, and alsohow turnips, 
beets, carrots, &c., flourished even in pure sand. A 
man travelling by the shore near there not long before 
us noticed something green growing in the pure sand 
of the beach, just at high -water mark, and on approach- 



l60 CAPE COD. 

ing found it to be a bed of beets flourishing vigorously, 
probably from seed washed out of the Franklin. Also 
beets and turnips came up in the sea-weed used for 
manure in many parts of the Cape. This suggests 
how various plants may have been dispersed over the 
world to distant islands and continents. Vessels, 
with seeds in their cargoes, destined for particular 
ports, where perhaps they were not needed, have 
been cast away on desolate islands, and though their 
crews perished, some of their seeds have been pre- 
served. Out of many kinds a few would find a soil 
and climate adapted to them, — become naturalized 
and perhaps drive out the native plants at last, and so 
fit the land for the habitation of man. It is an ill 
w^ind that blows nobody any good, and for the time 
lamentable shipwrecks may thus contribute a new 
vegetable to a continent's stock, and prove on the 
whole a lasting blessing to its inhabitants. Or 
winds and currents might effect the same without the 
intervention of man. What indeed are the various 
succulent plants which grow on the beach but such 
beds of beets and turnips, sprung originally from seeds 
which perhaps were cast on the waters for this end, 
though we do not know the Franklin which they came 
out of? In ancient times some Mr. Bell (?) was 
sailing this way in his ark with seeds of rocket, salt- 
wort, sandwort, beach-grass, samphire, bayberry, 
poverty-grass, &c., all nicely labelled with directions, 
intending to establish a nursery somewhere; and did 
not a nursery get established, though he thought that 
he had failed ? 

About the light-house I observed in the summer the 
pretty Polygala polygama, spreading ray-wise fiat on 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. i6l 

the ground, white pasture thistles (Cirsium pumilum)^ 
and amid the shrubbery the Smilax glauca, which is 
commonly said not to grow so far north; near the 
edge of the banks about half a mile southward, the 
broom crowberry {Empetrum Conradii), for which 
Plymouth is the only locality in Massachusetts 
usually named, forms pretty green mounds four or 
five feet in diameter by one foot high, — soft, springy 
beds for the wayfarer. I saw it afterward in Province- 
town, but prettiest of all the scarlet pimpernel, or 
poor-man's weather-glass {Anagallis arvensis), greets 
you in fair weather on almost every square yard of 
sand. From Yarmouth, I have received the Chry- 
sopsis jalcata (golden aster), and Vaccinium stami- 
neum (Deerberry or Squaw Huckleberry), with fruit 
not edible, sometimes as large as a cranberry (Sept. 7). 
The Highland Light-house,^ where we were staying, 
is a substantial-looking building of brick, painted 
white, and surmounted by an iron cap. Attached to 
it is the dwelling of the keeper, one story high, also of 
brick, and built by government. As we were going to 
spend the night in a light-house, we wished to make the 
most of so novel an experience, and therefore told our 
host that we would like to accompany him when he 
went to light up. At rather early candle-light he 
lighted a small Japan lamp, allowing it to smoke 
rather more than we Hke on ordinary occasions, 
and told us to follow him. He led the way first 
through his bedroom, which was placed nearest to 
the light-house, and then through a long, narrow, 
covered passage-way, between whitewashed walls 

1 The light-house has since been rebuilt, and shows a 
Fresnel light. 



1 62 CAPE COD. 

like a prison entry, into the lower part of the light- 
house, where many great butts of oil were arranged 
around ; thence we ascended by a winding and open 
iron stain\^ay, with a steadily increasing scent of oil 
and lamp-smoke, to a trap-door in an iron floor, and 
through this into the lantern. It was a neat building, 
with everything in apple-pie order, and no danger of 
anything rusting there for want of oil. The light 
consisted of fifteen argand lamps, placed within smooth 
concave reflectors twenty-one inches in diameter, and 
arranged in two horizontal circles one above the other, 
facing every way excepting directly down the Cape. 
These were surrounded, at a distance of two or three 
feet, by large plate-glass windows, which defied the 
storms, with iron sashes, on which rested the iron cap. 
All the iron work, except the floor, was painted white. 
And thus the light-house was completed. We 
walked slowly round in that narrow space as the keeper 
lighted each lamp in succession, conversing with him 
at the same moment that many a sailor on the deep 
witnessed the lighting of the Highland Light. His 
duty was to fill and trim and fight his lamps, and keep 
bright the reflectors. He filled them every morning, 
and trimmed them commonly once in the course of the 
night. He complained of the quaHty of the oil which 
was furnished. This house consumes about eight 
hundred gallons in a year, which cost not far from one 
dollar a gallon ; but perhaps a few lives would be saved 
if better oil were provided. Another light-house 
keeper said that the same proportion of winter-strained 
oil was sent to the southernmost light-house in the 
Union as to the most northern. Formerly, when this 
light-house had windows with small and thin panes, 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 163 

a severe storm would sometimes break the glass, and 
then they were obliged to put up a wooden shutter 
in haste to save their lights and reflectors, — and some- 
times in tempests, when the mariner stood most in 
need of their guidance, they had thus nearly converted 
the light-house into a dark lantern, which emitted 
only a few feeble rays, and those commonly on the 
land or lee side. He spoke of the anxiety and sense 
of responsibility which he felt in cold and stormy 
nights in the winter; when he knew that many a 
poor fellow was depending on him, and his lamps 
burned dimly, the oil being chilled. Sometimes he 
was obliged to warm the oil in a kettle in his house at 
midnight, and fill his lamps over again, — for he 
could not have a fire in the light-house, it produced 
such a sweat on the windows. His successor told me 
that he could not keep too hot a fire in such a case. 
All this because the oil was poor. A government 
lighting the mariners on its wintry coast with summer- 
strained oil, to save expense! That were surely a 
summer-strained mercy. 

This keeper's successor, who kindly entertained me 
the next year, stated that one extremely cold night, 
when this and all the neighboring lights were burning 
summer oil, but he had been provident enough to re- 
serve a little winter oil against emergencies, he was 
waked up with anxiety, and found that his oil was con- 
gealed, and his lights almost extinguished ; and when, 
after many hours' exertion, he had succeeded in replen- 
ishing his reservoirs with winter oil at the wick end, 
and with difficulty had made them burn, he looked out 
and found that the other lights in the neighborhood, 
which were usually visible to him, had gone out, and he 



1 64 CAPE COD. 

heard afterward that the Pamet River and Billings- 
gate Lights also had been extinguished. 

Our host said that the frost, too, on the windows 
caused him much trouble, and in sultry summer 
nights the moths covered them and dimmed his 
lights; sometimes even small birds flew against the 
thick plate glass, and were found on the ground 
beneath in the morning with their necks broken. In 
the spring of 1855 he found nineteen small yellow- 
birds, perhaps goldfinches or myrtle-birds, thus lying 
dead around the light-house; and sometimes in the 
fall he had seen where a golden plover had struck the 
glass in the night, and left the down and the fatty 
part of its breast on it. 

Thus he struggled, by every method, to keep his 
light shining before men. Surely the light-house 
keeper has a responsible, if an easy, ofBce. When his 
lamp goes out, he goes out ; or, at most, only one such 
accident is pardoned. 

I thought it a pity that some poor student did not 
live there, to profit by all that light, since he would not 
rob the mariner. "Well," he said, "I do sometimes 
come up here and read the newspaper when they are 
noisy down below." Think of fifteen argand lamps 
to read the newspaper by ! Government oil ! — light, 
enough, perchance, to read the Constitution by! I 
thought that he should read nothing less than his 
Bible by that light. I had a classmate who fitted 
for college by the lamps of a Hght-house, which was 
more light, we think, than the University afforded. 

When we had come down and walked a dozen rods 
from the light-house, we found that we could not get 
the full strength of its light on the narrow strip of 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 1 65 

land between it and the shore, being too low for the 
focus, and we saw only so many feeble and rayless 
stars; but at forty rods inland we could see to read, 
though we were still indebted to only one lamp. 
Each reflector sent forth a separate ''fan " of light, — 
one shone on the windmill, and one in the hollow, while 
the intervening spaces were in shadow. This light is 
said to be visible twenty nautical miles and more, 
from an observer fifteen feet above the level of the 
sea. We could see the revolving light at Race Point, 
the end of the Cape, about nine miles distant, and^also 
the hght on Long Point, at the entrance of Provmce- 
town Harbor, and one of the distant Plymouth Harbor 
Lights, across the Bay, nearly in a range with the last, 
Uke a star in the horizon. The keeper thought that 
the other Plymouth Light was concealed by being 
exactly in a range with the Long Point Light. He 
told us that the mariner was sometimes led astray 
by a mackerel fisher's lantern, who was afraid of 
being run down in the night, or even by a cottager's 
Hght, mistaking them for some well-known Hght on 
the coast, and, when he discovered his mistake, 
was wont to curse the prudent fisher or the wakeful 
cottager without reason. 

Though it was once declared that Providence placed 
this mass of clay here on purpose to erect a light-house 
on, the keeper said that the light-house should have 
been erected half a mile farther south, where the coast 
begins to bend, and where the light could be seen at 
the same time with the Nauset Lights, and distin- 
guished from them. They now talk of building one 
there. It happens that the present one is the more 
useless now, so near the extremity of the Cape, be- 



1 66 CAFE COD. 

cause other light-houses have since been erected 
there. 

Among the many regulations of the Light-house 
Board, hanging against the wall here, many of them 
excellent, perhaps, if there were a regiment stationed 
here to attend to them, there is one requiring the 
keeper to keep an account of the number of vessels 
which pass his light during the day. But there are 
a hundred vessels in sight at once, steering in all 
directions, many on the very verge of the horizon, and 
he must have more eyes than Argus, and be a good 
deal farther-sighted, to tell which are passing his light. 
It is an employment in some respects best suited to 
the habits of the gulls which coast up and down here, 
and circle over the sea. 

I was told by the next keeper, that on the 8th of 
June following, a particularly clear and beautiful 
morning, he rose about half an hour before sunrise, 
and having a httle time to spare, for his custom was to 
extinguish his lights at sunrise, walked down toward 
the shore to see what he might find. When he got to 
the edge of the bank he looked up, and, to his astonish- 
ment, saw the sun rising, and already part way above 
the horizon. Thinking that his clock was wrong, he 
made haste back, and though it was still too early by 
the clock, extinguished his lamps, and when he had 
got through and come down, he looked out the window,, 
and, to his still greater astonishment, saw the sun just 
where it was before, two-thirds above the horizon. 
He showed me where its rays fell on the wall across 
the room. He proceeded to make a fire, and when 
he had done, there was the sun still at the same height. 
Whereupon, not trusting to his own eyes any longer, 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 167 

he called up his wife to look at it, and she saw it also. 
There were vessels in sight on the ocean, and their 
crews, too, he said, must have seen it, for its rays fell 
on them. It remained at that height for about fifteen 
minutes by the clock, and then rose as usual, and 
nothing else extraordinary happened during that day. 
Though accustomed to the coast, he had never wit- 
nessed nor heard of such a phenomenon before. I 
suggested that there might have been a cloud in the 
horizon invisible to him, which rose with the sun, and 
his clock was only as accurate as the average; or 
perhaps, as he denied the possibility of this, it was 
such a looming of the sun as is said to occur at Lake 
Superior and elsewhere. Sir John Franklin, for in- 
stance, says in his Narrative, that when he was on the 
shore of the Polar Sea, the horizontal refraction varied 
so much one morning that "the upper Hmb of the 
sun twice appeared at the horizon before it finally 
rose." 

He certainly must be a sun of Aurora to whom the 
sun looms, when there are so many millions to whom 
it glooms rather, or who never see it till an hour after 
it has risen. But it behooves us old stagers to keep our 
lamps trimmed and burning to the last, and not 
trust to the sun's looming. 

This keeper remarked that the centre of the flame 
should be exactly opposite the centre of the reflectors, 
and that accordingly, if he was not careful to turn 
down his wicks in the morning, the sun falling on the 
reflectors on the south side of the building would set 
fire to them, like a burning-glass, in the coldest day, 
and he would look up at noon and see them all lighted ! 
When your lamp is ready to give light, it is readiest to 



1 68 CAPE COD. 

receive it, and the sun will light it. His successor 
said that he had never known them to blaze in such 
a case, but merely to smoke. 

I saw that this was a place of wonders. In a sea 
turn or shallow fog while I was there the next summer, 
it being clear overhead, the edge of the bank twenty 
rods distant appeared like a mountain pasture in the 
horizon. I was completely deceived by it, and I 
could then understand why mariners sometimes ran 
ashore in such cases, especially in the night, supposing 
it to be far away, though they could see the land. 
Once since this, being in a large oyster boat two or 
three hundred miles from here, in a dark night, 
when there was a thin veil of mist on land and water, 
we came so near to running on to the land before our 
skipper was aware of it, that the first warning was my 
hearing the sound of the surf under my elbow. I 
could almost have jumped ashore, and we were obHged 
to go about very suddenly to prevent striking. The 
distant light for which we were steering, supposing it 
a light-house five or six miles off, came through the 
cracks of a fisherman's bunk not more than six rods 
distant. 

The keeper entertained us handsomely in his soU- 
tary little ocean house. He was a man of singular 
patience and intelligence, who, when our queries 
struck him, rung as clear as a bell in response. The 
light-house lamps a few feet distant shone full into 
my chamber, and made it as bright as day, so I knew 
exactly how the Highland Light bore all that night, 
and I was in no danger of being wrecked. Unlike 
the last, this was as still as a summer night. I 
thought as I lay there, half awake and half asleep, 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 1 69 

looking upward through the window at the Hghts 
above my head, how many sleepless eyes from far out 
on the Ocean stream — mariners of all nations 
spinning their yarns through the various watches of 
the night — were directed toward my couch. 



IX. 

THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 

The light-house lamps were still burning, though 
now with a silvery lustre, when I rose to see the sun 
come out of the Ocean ; for he still rose eastward of 
us ; but I was convinced that he must have come out of 
a dry bed beyond that stream, though he seemed to 
come out of the water. 

"The sun once more touched the fields, 
Mounting to heaven from the fair flowing 
Deep-running Ocean." 

Now we saw countless sails of mackerel fishers 
abroad on the deep, one fleet in the north just pouring 
round the Cape, another standing down toward Chat- 
ham, and our host's son went off to join some lagging 
member of the first which had not yet left the Bay. 

Before we left the light-house we were obliged to 
anoint our shoes faithfully with tallow, for walking 
on the beach, in the salt water and the sand, had turned 
them red and crisp. To counterbalance this, I have 
remarked that the sea-shore, even where muddy, as 
it is not here, is singularly clean ; for notwithstanding 
the spattering of the water and mud and squirting of 
the clams while walking to and from the boat, your 
best black pants retain no stain nor dirt, such as they 
would acquire from walking in the country. 
170 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. lyi 

We have heard that a few days after this, when the 
Provincetown Bank was robbed, speedy emissaries 
from Provincetown made particular inquiries con- 
cerning us at this Hght-house. Indeed, they traced us 
all the way down the Cape, and concluded that we 
came by this unusual route down the back -side and on 
foot, in order that we might discover a way to get off 
with our booty when we had committed the robbery. 
The Cape is so long and narrow, and so bare withal, 
that it is wellnigh impossible for a stranger to visit it 
without the knowledge of its inhabitants generally, 
unless he is wrecked on to it in the night. So, when 
this robbery occurred, all their suspicions seem to have 
at once centred on us two travellers who had just passed 
down it. If we had not chanced to leave the Cape so 
soon, we should probably have been arrested. The 
real robbers were two young men from Worcester 
County who 'travelled with a centre-bit, and are said 
to have done their work very neatly. But the only 
bank that we pried into was the great Cape Cod sand- 
bank, and we robbed it only of an old French crown 
piece, some shells and pebbles, and the materials of 
this story. 

Again we took to the beach for another day (Octo- 
ber 13), walking along the shore of the resounding sea, 
determined to get it into us. We wished to associate 
with the Ocean until it lost the pond-like look which it 
wears to a countryman. We still thought that we 
could see the other side. Its surface was still more 
sparkling than the day before, and we beheld "the 
countless smiUngs of the ocean waves" ; though some 
of them were pretty broad grins, for still the wind blew 
&nd the billows broke in foam along the beach. The 



172 CAPE COD. 

nearest beach to us on the other side, whither we 
looked, due east, was on the coast of Galicia, in Spain, 
whose capital is Santiago, though by old poets' 
reckoning it should have been Atlantis or the Hes- 
perides ; but heaven is found to be farther west now. 
At first we were abreast of that part of Portugal entre 
Douro e Mino, and then Galicia and the port of Ponte- 
vedra opened to us as we walked along ; but we did not 
enter, the breakers ran so high. The bold headland of 
Cape Finisterre, a little north of east, jutted toward us 
next, with its vain brag, for we flung back, — ''Here 
is Cape Cod, — Cape Land's-Beginning." A little 
indentation toward the north, — for the land loomed 
to our imaginations by a common mirage, — we knew 
was the Bay of Biscay, and we sang: — 

"There we lay, till next day, 

In the Bay of Biscay O!" 

A little south of east was Palos, where Columbus 
weighed anchor, and farther yet the pillars which 
Hercules set up; concerning which when we inquired 
at the top of our voices what was written on them, — 
for we had the morning sun in our faces, and could not 
see distinctly, — the inhabitants shouted Ne plus 
ultra (no more beyond), but the wind bore to us the 
truth only, plus ultra (more beyond), and over the 
Bay westward was echoed ultra (beyond). We spoke 
to them through the surf about the Far West, the true 
Hesperia, cw Trc/oas or end of the day, the This Side 
Sundown, where the sun was extinguished in the Pa- 
cific, and we advised them to pull up stakes and plant 
those pillars of theirs on the shore of California, 
whither all our folks were gone, — the only ne plus 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 173 

ultra now. Whereat they looked crestfallen on their 
cliffs, for we had taken the wind out of all their sails. 

We could not perceive that any of their leavings 
washed up here, though we picked up a child's toy, 
a small dismantled boat, which may have been lost at 
Pontevedra. 

The Cape became narrower and narrower as we 
approached its wrist between Truro and Provincetown, 
and the shore incHned more decidedly 'to the west. 
At the head of East Harbor Creek, the Atlantic is 
separated but by half a dozen rods of sand from the 
tide-waters of the Bay. From the Clay Pounds the 
bank flatted off for the last ten miles to the extremity 
at Race Point, though the highest parts, which are 
called ''islands" from their appearance at a distance 
on the sea, were still seventy or eighty feet above the 
Atlantic, and afforded a good view of the latter, as 
well as a constant view of the Bay, there being no trees 
nor a hill sufficient to interrupt it. Also the sands 
began to invade the land more and more, until finally 
they had entire possession from sea to sea, at the 
narrowest part. For three or four miles between 
Truro and Provincetown there were no inhabitants 
from shore to shore, and there were but three or four 
houses for twice that distance. 

As we plodded along, either by the edge of the ocean, 
where the sand was rapidly drinking up the last wave 
that wet it, or over the sand-hills of the bank, the 
mackerel fleet continued to pour round the Cape 
north of us, ten or fifteen miles distant, in countless 
numbers, schooner after schooner, till they made a city 
on the water. They were so thick that many appeared 
to be afoul of one another; now all standing on this 



174 CAPE COD 

tack, now on that. We saw how well the New-Eng- 
landers had followed up Captain John Smith's sug- 
gestions with regard to the fisheries, made in 1616, — 
to what a pitch they had carried "this contemptible 
trade of fish," as he significantly styles it, and were 
now equal to the Hollanders whose example he holds 
up for the English to emulate; notwithstanding that 
"in this faculty," as he says, "the former are so 
naturahzed, and of their vents so certainly acquainted, 
as there is no HkeHhood they will ever be paralleled, 
having two or three thousand busses, flat-bottoms, 
sword-pinks, todes, and such hke, that breeds them 
sailors, mariners, soldiers, and merchants, never to 
be wrought out of that trade and fit for any other." 
We thought that it would take all these names and 
more to describe the numerous craft w^hich we saw. 
Even then, some years before our "renowned sires" 
with their "peerless dames" stepped on Plymouth 
Rock, he wrote, "Newfoundland doth yearly freight 
neir eight hundred sail of ships with a silly, lean, 
skinny, poor-john, and cor fish," though all their sup- 
pUes must be annually transported from Europe. 
Why not plant a colony here then, and raise those 
suppHes on the spot? "Of all the four parts of the 
world," says he, "that I have yet seen, not inhabited, 
could I have but means to transport a colony, I would 
rather, live here than anywhere. And if it did not 
maintain itself, were we but once indifferently well 
fitted, let us starve." Then "fishing before your 
doors," you "may every night sleep quietly ashore, 
with good cheer and what fires you will, or, when you 
please, with your wives and family." Already he 
anticipates "the new towns in New England in mem- 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 1 75 

ory of their old," — and who knows what may be 
discovered in the "heart and entrails" of the land, 
*• seeing even the very edges," &c., &c. 

All this has been accomphshed, and more, and 
where is Holland now? Verily the Dutch have taken 
it. There was no long interval between the suggestion 
of Smith and the eulogy of Burke. 

Still one after another the mackerel schooners hove 
in sight round the head of the Cape, "whitening all 
the sea road," and we watched each one for a moment 
with an undivided interest. It seemed a pretty sport. 
Here in the country it is only a few idle boys or loafers 
that go a-fishing on a rainy day; but there it appeared 
as if every able-bodied man and helpful boy in the 
Bay had gone out on a pleasure excursion in their 
yachts, and all would at last land and have a chowder 
on the Cape. The gazetteer tells you gravely how 
many of the men and boys of these towns are engaged 
in the whale, cod, and mackerel fishery, how many 
go to the banks of Newfoundland, or the coast of 
Labrador, the Straits of Belle Isle or the Bay of Cha- 
leurs (Shalore the sailors call it) ; as if I were to reckon 
up the number of boys in Concord who are engaged 
during the summer in the perch, pickerel, bream, horn- 
pout, and shiner fishery, of which no one keeps the 
statistics, — though I think that it is pursued with as 
much profit to the moral and intellectual man (or 
boy), and certainly with less danger to the physical one. 

One of my playmates, who was apprenticed to a 
printer, and was somewhat of a wag, asked his master 
one afternoon if he might go a-iishing, and his master 
consented. He was gone three months. When he 
came back, he said that he had been to the Grand 



176 CAPE COD, 

Banks, and went to setting type again as if only an 
afternoon had intervened. 

I confess I was surprised to find that so many men 
spent their whole day, ay, their whole lives almost, 
a-fishing. It is remarkable what a serious business 
men make of getting their dinners, and how univer- 
sally shiftlessness and a grovelling taste take refuge 
in a merely ant-like industry. Better go without your 
dinner, I thought, than be thus everlastingly fishing 
for it like a cormorant. Of course, viewed from the 
shore, our pursuits in th'e country appear not a whit less 
frivolous. 

I once sailed three miles on a mackerel cruise 
myself. It was a Sunday evening after a very warm 
day in which there had been frequent thunder-showers, 
and I had walked along the shore from Cohasset to 
Duxbury. I wished to get over from the last place to 
Clark's Island, but no boat could stir, they said, at that 
stage of the tide, they being left high on the mud. 
At length I learned that the tavern-keeper, Winsor, 
was going out mackerelling with seven men that even- 
ing, and would take me. When there had been due 
delay, we one after another straggled down to the shore 
in a leisurely manner, as if waiting for the tide still, 
and in India-rubber boots, or carrying our shoes in 
our hands, waded to the boats, each of the crew bearing 
an armful of wood, and one a bucket of new potatoes 
besides. Then they resolved that each should bring 
one more armful of wood, and that would be enough. 
They had already got a barrel of water, and had some 
more in the schooner. We shoved the boats a dozen 
rods over the mud and water till they floated, then 
rowing half a mile to the vessel climbed aboard, and 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 1 77 

there we were in a mackerel schooner, a fine stout 
vessel of forty-three tons, whose name I forget. The 
baits were not dry on the hooks. There was the mill 
in which they ground the mackerel, and the trough to 
hold it, and the long-handled dipper to cast it over- 
board with; and already in the harbor we saw the 
surface rippled with schools of small mackerel, the 
real Scomber vernalis. The crew proceeded leisurely 
to weigh anchor and raise their two sails, there being a 
fair but very slight wind ; — and the sun now setting 
clear and shining on the vessel after the thunder- 
showers, I thought that I could not have commenced 
the voyage under more favorable auspices. They had 
four dories and commonly fished in them, else they 
fished on the starboard side aft where their lines hung 
ready, two to a man. The boom swung round once 
or twice, and Winsor cast overboard the foul juice 
of mackerel mixed with rain-water which remained in 
his trough, and then we gathered about the hehnsman 
and told stories. I remember that the compass was 
affected by iron in its neighborhood and varied a few 
degrees. There was one among us just returned from 
California, who was now going as passenger for his 
health and amusement. They expected to be gone 
about a week, to begin fishing the next morning, and 
to carry their fish fresh to Boston. They landed me 
at Clark's Island, where the Pilgrims landed, for 
my companions wished to get some milk for the 
voyage. But I had seen the whole of it. The rest 
was only going to sea and catching the mackerel. 
Moreover, it was as well that I did not remain with 
them, considering the small quantity of supplies they 
had taken. 



178 CAPE COD. 

Now I saw the mackerel fleet on its fishing-ground, 
though I was not at first aware of it. So my experi- 
ence was complete. 

It was even more cold and windy to-day than before, 
and we were frequently glad to take shelter behind a 
sand-hill. None of the elements were resting. On 
the beach there is a ceaseless activity, always some- 
thing going on, in storm and in calm, winter and 
summer, night and day. Even the sedentary man here 
enjoys a breadth of view which is almost equivalent 
to motion. In clear weather the laziest may look 
across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over 
the Atlantic as far as human vision reaches, merely 
raising his eyehds ; or if he is too lazy to look after all, 
he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash and roar 
of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any 
moment cast up a whale or a wrecked vessel at your 
feet. All the reporters in the world, the most rapid 
stenographers, could not report the news it brings. 
No creature could move slowly where there was so 
much Hfe around. The few wreckers were either 
going or coming, and the ships and the sand-pipers, 
and the screaming gulls overhead; nothing stood still 
but the shore. The Httle beach-birds trotted past 
close to the water's edge, or paused but an instant to 
swallow their food, keeping time with the elements, 
I wondered how they ever got used to the sea, that they 
ventured so near the waves. Such tiny inhabitants 
the land brought forth ! except one fox. And what 
could a fox do, looking on the Adantic from that high 
bank? What is the sea to a fox? Sometimes we 
met a wrecker with his cart and dog, — and his dog's 
faint bark at us wayfarers, heard through the roaring 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 1 79 

of the surf, sounded ridiculously faint. To see a 
little trembling dainty-footed cur stand on the margin 
of the ocean, and ineffectually bark at a beach-bird, 
amid the roar of the Atlantic ! Come with design to 
bark at a whale, perchance ! That sound will do for 
farmyards. All the dogs looked out of place there, 
naked and as if shuddering at the vastness; and I 
thought that they would not have been there had it 
not been for the countenance of their masters. Still 
less could you think of a cat bending her steps that 
way, and shaking her wet foot over the Atlantic; yet 
even this happens sometimes, they tell me. In sum- 
mer I saw the lender young of the Piping Plover, like 
chickens just hatched, mere pinches of down on two 
legs, running in troops, with a faint peep, along the 
edge of the waves. I used to see packs of half-wild 
dogs haunting the lonely beach on the south shore of 
Staten Island, in New York Bay, for the sake of the 
carrion there cast up ; and I remember that once, when 
for a long time I had heard a furious barking in the 
tall grass of the marsh, a pack of half a dozen large 
dogs burst forth on to the beach, pursuing a httle one 
which ran straight to me for protection, and I afforded 
it with some stones, though at some risk to myself; 
but the next day the little one was the first to bark at 
me. Under these circumstances I could not but 
remember the words of the poet : — 

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 
Thou art not so unkind 

As his ingratitude; 
Thy tooth is not so keen, 
Because thou art not seen, 

Although thy breath be rude. 



l80 CAPE COD. 

"Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, 
Thou dost not bite so nigh 

As benefits forgot; 
Though thou the waters warp, 
Thy sting is not so sharp 

As friend remembered not. 



Sometimes, when I was approaching the carcass of 
a horse or ox which lay on the beach there, where there 
was no living creature in sight, a dog would unexpect- 
edly emerge from it and slink away with a mouthful 
of offal. 

The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most 
advantageous point from which to contemplate this 
world. It is even a trivial place. The waves forever 
rolling to the land are too far-travelled and untamable 
to be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid 
the sun-squawl and the foam, it occurs to us that we, 
too, are the product of sea-slime. 

It is a wild, rank place, and there is no flattery in 
it. Strewn with crabs, horse-shoes, and razor-clams, 
and whatever the sea casts up, — a vast morgue, where 
famished dogs may range in packs, and crows come 
daily to glean the pittance which the tide leaves them. 
The carcasses of men and beasts together lie stately 
up upon its shelf, rotting and bleaching in the sun and 
waves, and each tide turns them in their beds, and tucks 
fresh sand under them. There is naked Nature, — in- 
humanly sincere, wasting no thought on man, nibbling 
at the cliffy shore where gulls wheel amid the spray. 

We saw this forenoon what, at a distance, looked like 
a bleached log with a branch still left on it. It proved 
to be one of the principal bones of a whale, whose 
carcass, having been stripped of blubber at sea and cut 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. l8l 

adrift, had been washed up some months before. It 
chanced that this was the most conclusive evidence 
which we met with to prove, what the Copenhagen 
antiquaries assert, that these shores were the Fur- 
dustrandas, which Thorhall, the companion of 
Thorfinn during his expedition to Vinland in 1007, 
sailed past in disgust. It appears that after they had 
left the Cape and explored the country about Straum- 
Fiordr (Buzzards' Bay!), Thorhall, who was dis- 
appointed at not getting any wine to drink there, 
determined to sail north again in search of Vinland. 
Though the antiquaries have given us the original 
Icelandic, I prefer to quote their translation, since 
theirs is the only Latin which I know to have been 
aimed at Cape Cod. 

"Cum parati erant, sublato 
velo, cecinit Thorhallus: 
Eo redeamus, ubi conterranei 
sunt nostri ! faciamus aliter, 
expansi arenosi peritum, 
lata navis explorare curricula: 
dum procellam incitantes gladii 
morae impatientes, qui terram 
coUaudant, Furdustrandas 
inhabitant et coquunt balaenas." 

In other words : "When they were ready and their sail 
hoisted, Thorhall sang: Let us return thither where 
our fellow-countrymen are. Let us make a bird^ 
skilful to fly through the heaven of sand,^ to explore 
the broad track of ships; while warriors who impel 
to the tempest of swords,^ who praise the land, inhabit 

^ I.e. a vessel. 

2 The sea, which is arched over its sandy bottom like a 
heaven. 

3 Battle. 



1 82 CAPE COD. 

Wonder-Strands, and cook whales P And so he sailed 
north past Cape Cod, as the antiquaries say, "and was 
shipwrecked on to Ireland." 

Though once there were more whales cast up here, 
I think that it was never more wild than now. We do 
not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor 
wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do 
of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable 
always. The Indians have left no traces on its sur- 
face, but it is the same to the civilized man and the 
savage. The aspect of the shore only has changed. 
The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, 
wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, 
washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens 
of our sea-side residences. Serpents, bears, hyenas, 
tigers, rapidly vanish as civilization advances, but the 
most populous and civilized city cannot scare a shark 
far from its wharves. It is no further advanced than 
Singapore, with its tigers, in this respect. The Boston 
papers had never told me that there were seals in the 
harbor. I had always associated these with the Esqui- 
maux and other outlandish people. Yet from the par- 
lor windows all along the coast you may see families of 
them sporting on the flats. They were as strange to 
me as the merman would be. Ladies who never walk 
in the woods, sail over the sea. To go to sea ! Why, 
it is to have the experience of Noah, — to realize the 
deluge. Every vessel is an ark. 

We saw no fences as we walked the beach, no 
birchen riders, highest of rails, projecting into the sea 
to keep the cows from wading round, nothing to re- 
mind us that man was proprietor of the shore. Yet 
a Truro man did tell us that owners of land on the east 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT 183 

side of that town were regarded as owning the beach, 
in order that they might have the control of it so far 
as to defend themselves against the encroachments 
of the sand and the beach -grass, — for even this 
friend is sometimes regarded as a foe; but he said 
that this was not the case on the Bay side. Also I 
have seen in sheltered parts of the Bay temporary 
fences running to low -water mark, the posts being set 
in sills or sleepers placed transversely. 

After we had been walking many hours, the mackerel 
fleet still hovered in the northern horizon nearly in the 
same direction, but farther off, hull down. Though 
their sails were set they never sailed away, nor yet 
came to anchor, but stood on various tacks as close 
together as vessels in a haven, and we in our igno- 
rance thought that they were contending patiently 
with adverse winds, beating eastward; but we learned 
afterward that they were even then on their fishing- 
ground, and that they caught mackerel without taking 
in their mainsails or coming to anchor, "a smart 
breeze" (thence called a mackerel breeze) being," as 
one says, "considered most favorable" for this pur- 
pose. We counted about two hundred sail of mackerel 
fishers within one small arc of the horizon, and a nearly 
equal number had disappeared southward. Thus 
they hovered about the extrem.ity of the Cape, Hke 
moths round a candle; the lights at Race Point and 
Long Point being bright candles for them at night, — 
and at this distance they looked fair and white, as if 
they had not yet flown into the Hght, but nearer at 
hand afterward, we saw how some had formerly 
singed their wings and bodies. 

A village seems thus, where its able-bodied men are 



1 84 CAPE COD. 

all ploughing the ocean together, as a common field. 
In North Truro the women and girls may sit at their 
doors, and see where their husbands and brothers are 
harvesting their mackerel fifteen or twenty miles off, 
on the sea, with hundreds of white harvest wagons, 
just as in the country the farmers' wives sometimes 
see their husbands working in a distant hill-side field. 
But the sound of no dinner-horn can reach the fisher's 
ear. 

Having passed the narrowest part of the waist of 
the Cape, though still in Truro, for this township is 
about twelve miles long on the shore, we crossed over to 
the Bay side, not half a mile distant, in order to spend 
the noon on the nearest shrubby sand-hill in Province- 
town, called Mount Ararat, which rises one hundred 
feet above the ocean. On our way thither we had 
occasion to admire the various beautiful forms and 
colors of the sand, and we noticed an interesting mirage, 
which I have since found that Hitchcock also observed 
on the sands of the Cape. We were crossing a shallow 
valley in the Desert, where the smooth and spotless 
sand sloped upward by a small angle to the horizon 
on every side, and at the lowest part was a long chain 
of clear but shallow pools. As we were approaching 
these for a drink in a diagonal direction across the 
valley, they appeared inclined at a slight but decided 
angle to the horizon, though they were plainly and 
broadly connected with one another, and there was 
not the least ripple to suggest a current; so that by 
the time we had reached a convenient part of one we 
seemed to have ascended several feet. They appeared 
to lie by magic on the side of the vale, like a mirror 
left in a slanting position. It was a very pretty mirage 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 1 85 

for a Provincetown dcsorl, but not amounting to what, 
in Sanscrit, is called "the thirst of the gazelle," as 
there was real water here for a base, and we were 
able to quench our thirst after all. 

Professor Rafn, of Copenhagen, thinks that the mi- 
rage which I noticed, but which an old inhabitant of 
Provincetown, to whom I mentioned it, had never seen 
nor heard of, had something to do with the name 
"Furdustrandas," i.e. Wonder-Strands, given, as I 
have said, in the old Icelandic account of Thorfinn's 
expedition to Vinland in the year 1007, to a part of the 
coast on which he landed. But these sands are more 
remarkable for their length than for their mirage, which 
is common to all deserts, and the reason for the name 
which the Northmen themselves give, — "because it 
took a long time to sail by them," — is sufficient and 
more applicable to these shores. However, if you 
should sail all the way from Greenland to Buzzards' 
Bay along the coast, you would get sight of a good 
many sandy beaches. But whether Thor-finn saw 
the mirage here or not, Thor-eau, one of the same 
family, did; and perchance it was because Lief the 
Lucky had, in a previous voyage, taken Thor-erand 
his people off the rock in the middle of the sea, that 
Thor-eau was born to see it. 

This was not the only mirage which I saw on the 
Cape. That half of the beach next the bank is com- 
monly level, or nearly so, while the other slopes down- 
ward to the water. As I was walking upon the edge 
of the bank in Wellfleet at sundown, it seemed to me 
that the inside half of the beach sloped upward toward 
the water to meet the other, forming a ridge ten or 
twelve feet high the whole length of the shore, but 



1 86 CAPE COD. 

higher always opposite to where I stood ; and I was 
not convinced of the contrary till I descended the 
bank, though the shaded outlines left by the waves of a 
previous tide but half-way down the apparent declivity 
might have taught me better. A stranger may easily 
detect what is strange to the oldest inhabitant, for the 
strange is his province. The old oysterman, speak- 
ing of gull-shooting, had said that you must aim 
under, when firing down the bank. 

A neighbor tells me that one August, looking through 
a glass from Naushon to some vessels which were 
sailing along near Martha's Vineyard, the water about 
them appeared perfectly smooth, so that they were 
reflected in it, and yet their full sails proved that it 
must be rippled, and they who were with him thought 
that it was a mirage, i.e. a reflection from a haze. 

From the above-mentioned sand-hill we overlooked 
Provincetown and its harbor, now emptied of vessels, 
and also a wide expanse of ocean. As we did not wish 
to enter Provincetown before night, though it was cold 
and windy, we returned across the Deserts to the At- 
lantic side, and walked along the beach again nearly 
to Race Point, being still greedy of the sea influence. 
All the while it was not so calm as the reader may 
suppose, but it was blow, blow, blow, — roar, roar, 
roar, — tramp, tramp, tramp, — without interruption. 
The shore now trended nearly east and west. 

Before sunset, having already seen the mackerel 
fleet returning into the Bay, we left the sea-shore on 
the north of Provincetown, and made our way across 
the Desert to the eastern extremity of the town. From 
the first high sand-hill, covered with beach-grass and 
bushes to its top, on the edge of the desert, we over- 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 1 8/ 

looked the shrubby hill and swamp country which 
surrounds Provincetown on the north, and protects 
it, in some measure, from the invading sand. Not- 
withstanding the universal barrenness, and the con- 
tiguity of the desert, I never saw an autumnal land- 
scape so beautifully painted as this was. It was like 
the richest rug imaginable spread over an uneven sur- 
face; no damask nor velvet, nor Tyrian dye or stuffs, 
nor the work of any loom, could ever match it. There 
was the incredibly bright red of the Huckleberry, and 
the reddish brown of the Bayberry, mingled with the 
bright and living green of small Pitch -Pines, and also 
the duller green of the Bayberry, Boxberry, and Plum, 
the yellowish green of the Shrub-oaks, and the various 
golden and yellow and fawn -colored tints of the Birch 
and Maple and Aspen, — each making its own figure, 
and, in the midst, the few yellow sand-slides on the 
sides of the hills looked like the white floor seen 
through rents in the rug. Coming from the country 
as I did, and many autumnal woods as I had seen, this 
was perhaps the most novel and remarkable sight 
that I saw on the Cape. Probably the brightness of 
the tints was enhanced by contrast with the sand 
which surrounded this track. This was a part of the 
furniture of Cape Cod. We had for days walked up 
the long and bleak piazza which runs along her Atlan- 
tic side, then over the sanded floor of her halls, and 
now we were being introduced into her boudoir. 
The hundred white sails crowding round Long Point 
into Provincetown Harbor, seen over the painted hills 
in front, looked like toy ships upon a mantel-piece. 
The peculiarity of this autumnal landscape con- 
sisted in the lowness and thickness of the shrubbery, no 



1 88 CAPE COD. 

less than in the brightness of the tints. It was Hke a 
thicli stuff of worsted or a fleece, and looked as if a 
giant could take it up by the hem, or rather the tasselled 
fringe which trailed out on the sand, and shake it, 
though it needed not to be shaken. But no doubt the 
dust would fly in that case, for not a little has accu- 
mulated underneath it. Was it not such an autumnal 
landscape as this which suggested our high-colored 
rugs and carpets ? Hereafter when I look on a richer 
rug than usual, and study its figures, I shall think, there 
are the huckleberry hills, and there the denser swamps 
of boxberry and blueberry: there the shrub-oak 
patches and the bayberries, there the maples and the 
birches and the pines. What other dyes are to be com- 
pared to these? They were warmer colors than I 
had associated with the New England coast. 

After threading a swamp full of boxberry, and climb- 
ing several hills covered with shrub-oaks, without a 
path, where shipwrecked men would be in danger of 
perishing in the night, we came down upon the eastern 
extremity of the four planks which run the whole 
length of Provincetown street. This, which is the last 
town on the Cape, lies mainly in one street along the 
curving beach fronting the southeast. The sand-hills, 
covered with shrubbery and interposed with swamps 
and ponds, rose immediately behind it in the form of 
a crescent, which is from half a mile to a mile or more 
wide in the middle, and beyond these is the desert, 
which is the greater part of its territory, stretching to 
the sea on the east and west and north. The town is 
compactly built in the narrow space, from ten to fifty 
rods deep, between the harbor and the sand-hills, and 
contained at that time about twenty-six hundred in- 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 1 89 

habitants. The houses, in which a more modern and 
pretending style has at length prevailed over the fisher- 
man's hut, stand on the inner or plank side of the 
street, and the fish and store houses, with the pic- 
turesque-looking windmills of the Salt-works, on the 
water side. The narrow portion of the beach between 
forming the street, about eighteen feet wide, the only 
one where one carriage could pass another, if there 
was more than one carriage in the town, looked much 
''heavier" than any portion of the beach or the 
desert which we had walked on, it being above the 
reach of the highest tide, and the sand being kept loose 
by the occasional passage of a traveller. We learned 
that the four planks on which we were walking had 
been bought by the town's share of the Surplus Reve- 
nue, the disposition of which was a bone of contention 
between the inhabitants, till they wisely resolved thus 
to put it under foot. Yet some, it was said, were so 
provoked because they did not receive their particular 
share in money, that they persisted in walking in the 
sand a long time after the sidewalk was built. This is 
the only instance which I happen to know in which the 
surplus revenue proved a blessing to any town. A 
surplus revenue of dollars from the treasury to stem 
the greater evil of a surplus revenue of sand from the 
ocean. They expected to make a hard road by the 
time these planks were worn out. Indeed, they have 
already done so since we were there, and have almost 
forgotten their sandy baptism. 

As we passed along we observed the inhabitants en- 
gaged in curing either fish or the coarse salt hay which 
they had brought home and spread on the beach before 
their doors, looking as yellow as if they had raked it out 



1 90 CAPE COD. 

of the sea. The front-yard plots appeared like what 
indeed they were, portions of the beach fenced in, with 
Beach -grass growing in them, as if they were some- 
times covered by the tide. You might still pick up 
shells and pebbles there. There were a few trees 
among the houses, especially silver abeles, willows, 
and balm-of-Gileads; and one man showed me a 
young oak which he had transplanted from behind the 
town, thinking it an apple-tree. But every man to his 
trade. Though he had little woodcraft, he was not 
the less weatherwise, and gave us one piece of in- 
formation ; viz. he had observed that when a thunder- 
cloud came up with a flood-tide it did not rain. This 
was the most completely maritime town that we were 
ever in. It was merely a good harbor, surrounded 
by land dry, if not firm, — an inhabited beach, 
whereon fishermen cured and stored their fish, 
without any back country. When ashore the inhabit- 
ants still walk on planks. A few small patches have 
been reclaimed from the swamps, containing com- 
monly half a dozen square rods only each. We saw 
one which was fenced with four lengths of rail ; also a 
fence made wholly of hogshead-staves stuck in the 
ground. These, and such as these, were all the culti- 
vated and cultivable land in Provincetown. We were 
told that there were thirty or forty acres in all, but 
we did not discover a quarter part so much, and that 
was well dusted with sand, and looked as if the desert 
was claiming it. They are now turning some of their 
swamps into Cranberry Meadows on quite an exten- 
sive scale. 

Yet far from being out of the way, Provincetown is 
directly in the way of the navigator, and he is lucky 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 191 

who does not run afoul of it in the dark. It is situated 
on one of the highways of commerce, and men from 
all parts of the globe touch there in the course of a 
year. 

The mackerel fleet had nearly all got in before us, 
it being Saturday night, excepting that division which 
had stood down towards Chatham in the morning; 
and from a hill where we went to see the sun set in the 
Bay, we counted two hundred goodly-looking schoon- 
ers at anchor in the harbor at various distances from 
the shore, and more were yet coming round the Cape. 
As each came to anchor, it took in sail and swung 
round in the wind, and lowered its boat. They be- 
longed chiefly to Wellfleet, Truro, and Cape Ann. 
This was that city of canvas which we had seen hull 
down in the horizon. Near at hand, and under bare 
poles, they were unexpectedly black -looking vessels, 
/xeAaivat v^es. A fisherman told us that there were 
fifteen hundred vessels in the mackerel fleet, and 
thcct he had counted three hundred and fifty in 
Provincetown Harbor at one time. Being obHged to 
anchor at a considerable distance from the shore on 
account of the shallowness of the water, they made the 
impression of a larger fleet than the vessels at the 
wharves of a large city. As they had been manoeu- 
vring out there all day seemingly for our entertainment, 
while we were walking northwestward along the 
Atlantic, so now we found them flocking into Province- 
town Harbor at night, just as we arrived, as if to 
meet us, and exhibit themselves close at hand. Stand- 
ing by Race Point and Long Point with various speed, 
they reminded me of fowls coming home to roost. 

These were genuine New England vessels. It is 



192 CAPE COD, 

stated in the Journal of Moses Prince, a brother of the 
annalist, under date of 1721, at which time he visited 
Gloucester, that the first vessel of the class called 
schooner was built at Gloucester about eight years 
before, by Andrew Robinson ; and late in the same 
century one Cotton Tufts gives us the tradition with 
some particulars, which he learned on a visit to the 
same place. According to the latter, Robinson having 
constructed a vessel which he masted and rigged in a 
peculiar manner, on her going off the stocks a by- 
stander cried out, "O, how she scoonsf' whereat 
Robinson repHed, *'A schooner let her be!" "From 
which time," says Tufts, "vessels thus masted and 
rigged have gone by the name of schooners; before 
which, vessels of this description were not known in 
Europe." (See Mass. Hist. Coll., Vol. IX., ist 
Series, and Vol. I., 4th Series.) Yet I can hardly 
believe this, for a schooner has always seemed to me 
— the typical vessel. 

According to C. E. Potter of Manchester, New 
Hampshire, the very word schooner is of New England 
origin, being from the Indian schoon or scoot, meaning 
to rush, as Schoodic, from scoot and anke, a place 
where water rushes. N.B. Somebody of Gloucester 
was to read a paper on this matter before a genea- 
logical society, in Boston, March 3, 1859, according 
to the Boston Journal, q.v. 

Nearly all who come out must walk on the four 
planks which I have mentioned, so that you are pretty 
sure to meet all the inhabitants of Provincetown who 
come out in the course of a day, provided you keep out 
yourself. This evening the planks were crowded 
with mackerel fishers, to whom we gave and from 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 1 93 

whom we took the wall, as we returned to our hotel. 
This hotel was kept by a tailor, his shop on the one 
side of the door, his hotel on the other, and his day 
seemed to be divided between carving meat and carv- 
ing broadcloth. 

The next morning, though it was still more cold and 
blustering than the day before, we took to the Deserts 
again, for we spent our days wholly out of doors, m the 
sun when there was any, and in the wind which never 
failed. After threading the shrubby hill country at 
the southwest end of the town, west of the Shank - 
Painter Swamp, whose expressive name — for we 
understood it at first as a landsman naturally would — 
gave it importance in our eyes, we crossed the sands 
to the shore south of Race Point and three miles 
distant, and thence roamed round eastward through 
the desert to where we had left the sea the evening 
before. We travelled five or six miles after we got 
out there, on a curving line, and might have gone nine 
or ten, over vast platters of pure sand, from the midst 
of which we could not see a particle of vegetation, 
excepting the distant thin fields of Beach-grass, which 
crowned and made the ridges toward which the sand 
sloped upward on each side; — all the while in the 
face of a cutting wind as cold as January; indeed, we 
experienced no weather so cold as this for nearly two 
months afterward. This desert extends from the 
extremity of the Cape, through Provincetown into 
Truro, and many a time as we were traversing it we 
were reminded of ''Riley's Narrative" of his captivity 
in the sands of Arabia, notwithstanding the cold. Our 
eyes magnified the patches of Beach-grass into corn- 
fields in the horizon, and we probably exaggerated 



194 CAPE COD. 

the height of the ridges on account of the mirage. 
I was pleased to learn afterward, from Kalm's Travels 
in North America, that the inhabitants of the Lower 
St. Lawrence call this grass {Calamagrostis arenaria), 
and also Sea-lyme grass {Elymus arenarius), seigle de 
mer; and he adds, "I have been assured that these 
plants grow in great plenty in Newfoundland, and on 
other North American shores; the places covered with 
them looking, at a distance, like cornfields; which 
might explain the passage in our northern accounts 
[he wrote in 1749] of the excellent wine land [Vinland 
det goda, Translator], which mentions that they had 
found whole fields of wheat growing wild." 

The Beach -grass is "two to four feet high, of a sea- 
green color," and it is said to be widely diffused over 
the world. In the Hebrides it is used for mats, 
pack-saddles, bags, hats, &c. ; paper has been made 
of it at Dorchester in this State, and cattle eat it when 
tender. It has heads somewhat like rye, from six 
inches to a foot in length, and it is propagated both by 
roots and seeds. To express its love for sand, some 
botanists have called it Psamma arenaria, which is 
the Greek for sand, qualified by the Latin for sandy, — 
or sandy sand. As it is blown about by the wind, 
while it is held fast by its roots, it describes myriad 
circles in the sand as accurately as if they were made 
by compasses. 

It was the dreariest scenery imaginable. The only 
animals which we saw on the sand at that time were 
spiders, which are to be found almost everywhere 
whether on snow or ice-water or sand, — and a venom- 
ous-looking, long, narrow worm, one of the myriapods, 
or thousand-legs. We were surprised to see spider- 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT, 1 95 

holes in that flowing sand with an edge as fimi as 
that of a stoned well. 

In June this sand was scored with the tracks of 
turtles both large and small, which had been out in the 
night, leading to and from the sw^amps. I was told 
by a terra filius who has a "farm " on the edge of the 
desert, and is famiUar with the fame of Provincetown, 
that one man had caught twenty-five snapping-turtles 
there the previous spring. His own method of catch- 
ing them was to put a toad on a mackerel-hook and 
cast it into a pond, tying the Hne to a stump or stake 
on shore. Invariably the turtle when hooked crawled 
up the line to the stump, and was found waiting there 
by his captor, however long afterward. He also said 
that minks, muskrats, foxes, coons, and wild mice were 
found there, but no squirrels. We heard of sea-turtle 
as large as a barrel being found on the beach and on 
East Harbor marsh, but whether they were native 
there, or had been lost out of some vessel, did not 
appear. Perhaps they were the Salt-water Terrapin, 
or else the Smooth Terrapin, found thus far north. 
Many toads were met with where there was nothing 
but sand and beach -grass. In Truro I had been 
surprised at the number of large light-colored toads 
everywhere hopping over the dry and sandy fields, 
their color corresponding to that of the sand. Snakes 
also are common on these pure sand beaches, and I 
have never been so much troubled by mosquitoes as 
in such localities. At the same season strawberries 
grew there abundantly in the little hollows on the edge 
of the desert standing amid the beach-grass in the 
sand, and the fruit of the shad-bush or Amelanchier , 
which the inhabitants call Josh-pears (some think 



196 CAPE COD. 

from juicy?), is very abundant on the hills. I fell in 
with an obliging man who conducted me to the best 
locality for strawberries. He said that he would not 
have shown me the place if he had not seen that I was 
a stranger, and could not anticipate him another year; 
I therefore feel bound in honor not to reveal it. 
When we came to a pond, he being the native did the 
honors and carried me over on his shoulders, like 
Sindbad. One good turn deserves another, and if he 
ever comes our way I will do as much for him. 

In one place we saw numerous dead tops of trees 
projecting through the otherwise uninterrupted desert, 
where, as we afterward learned, thirty or forty years 
before a flourishing forest had stood, and now, as the 
trees were laid bare from year to year, the inhabitants 
cut off their tops for fuel. 

We saw nobody that day outside of the town; it 
was too wintry for such as had seen the Back -side 
before, or for the greater number who never desire to 
see it, to venture out; and we saw hardly a track to 
show that any had ever crossed this desert. Yet I was 
told that some are always out on the Back -side night 
and day in severe weather, looking for wrecks, in 
order that they may get the job of discharging the 
cargo, or the like, — and thus shipwrecked men are 
succored. But, generally speaking, the inhabitants 
rarely visit these sands. One who had Uved in Prov- 
incetown thirty years told me that he had not been 
through to the north side within that time. Some- 
times the natives themselves come near perishing by 
losing their way in snow-storms behind the town. 

The wind was not a Sirocco or Simoon, such as we 
associate with the desert, but a New England north- 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT 1 97 

easter, — and we sought shelter in vain under the 
sand-hills, for it blew all about them, rounding them 
into cones, and was sure to find us out on whichever 
side we sat. From time to time we lay down and 
drank at little pools in the sand, filled with pure fresh 
water, all that was left, probably, of a pond or swamp. 
The air was filled with dust like snow, and cutting 
sand which made the face tingle, and we saw what it 
must be to face it when the weather was drier, and, 
if possible, windier still, — to face a migrating sand- 
bar in the air, which has picked up its duds and is 
off, — to be whipped with a cat, not o' nine-tails, but 
of a myriad of tails, and each one a sting to it. A Mr. 
Whitman, a former minister of Wellfleet, used to write 
to his inland friends that the blowing sand scratched 
the windows so that he was obliged to have one new 
pane set every week, that he might see out. 

On the edge of the shrubby woods the sand had the 
appearance of an inundation which was overwhelming 
them, terminating in an abrupt bank many feet higher 
than the surface on which they stood, and having 
partially buried the outside trees. The moving sand- 
hills of England, called Dunes or Downs, to which 
these have been likened, are either formed of sand cast 
up by the sea, or of sand taken from the land itself in 
the first place by the wind, and driven still farther 
inward. It is here a tide of sand impelled by waves 
and wind, slowly flowing from the sea toward the 
town. The northeast winds are said to be the strong- 
est, but the northwest to move most sand, because 
they are the driest. On the shore of the Bay of Biscay 
many villages were formerly destroyed in this way. 
Some of the ridges of beach-grass which we saw were 



198 CAPE COD. 

planted by government many years ago, to preserve 
the harbor of Provincetov^n and the extremity of the 
Cape. I talked with some who had been employed 
in the planting. In the "Description of the Eastern 
Coast," which I have already referred to, it is said: 
"Beach-grass during the spring and summer grows 
about two feet and a half. If surrounded by naked 
beach, the storms of autumn and winter heap up the 
sand on all sides, and cause it to rise nearly to the top 
of the plant. In the ensuing spring the grass sprouts 
anew; is again covered with sand in the winter; and 
thus a hill or ridge continues to ascend as long as there 
is a sufficient base to support it, or till the circumscrib- 
ing sand, being also covered with beach-grass, will no 
longer yield to the force of the winds." Sand-hills 
formed in this way are sometimes one hundred feet 
high and of every variety of form, like snow-drifts, or 
Arab tents, and are continually shifting. The grass 
roots itself very firmly. When I endeavored to pull it 
up, it usually broke off ten inches or a foot below the 
surface, at what had been the surface the year before, 
as appeared by the numerous offshoots there, it being 
a straight, hard, round shoot, showing by its length 
how much the sand had accumulated the last year; 
and sometimes the dead stubs of a previous season 
were pulled up with it from still deeper in the sand, 
with their own more decayed shoot attached, — so 
that the age of a sand-hill, and its rate of increase for 
several years, is pretty accurately recorded in this way. 
Old Gerard, the EngHsh herbaHst, says, p. 1250: 
"I find mention in Stowe's Chronicle, in Anno 1555, 
of a certain pulse or pease, as they term it, wherewith 
the poor people at that time, there being a great dearth, 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 199 

were miraculously helped : he thus mentions it. In 
the month of August (saith he), in Suffolke, at a place 
by the sea side all of hard stone and pibble, called in 
those parts a shelf, lying between the towns of Orford 
and Aldborough, where neither grew grass nor any 
earth was ever seen; it chanced in this barren place 
suddenly to spring up without any tillage or sowing, 
great abundance of peason, whereof the poor gathered 
(as men judged) above one hundred quarters, yet 
remained some ripe and some blossoming, as many as 
ever there were before: to the which place rode the 
Bishop of Norwich and the Lord Willoughby, with 
others in great number, who found nothing but hard, 
rocky stone the space of three yards under the roots 
of these peason, which roots were great and long, and 
very sweet." He tells us also that Gesner learned 
from Dr. Cajus that there were enough there to supply 
thousands of men. He goes on to say that ''they 
without doubt grew there many years before, but 
were not observed till hunger made them take notice 
of them, and quickened their invention, which com- 
monly in our people is very dull, especially in finding 
out food of this nature. My worshipful friend Dr. 
Argent hath told me that many years ago he was in this 
place, and caused his man to pull among the beach with 
his hands, and follow the roots so long until he got 
some equal in length unto his height, yet could come 
to no ends of them." Gerard never saw them, and 
is not certain what kind they were. 

In Dwight's Travels in New England it is stated 
that the inhabitants of Truro were formerly regularly 
warned under the authority of law in the month of 
April yearly, to plant beach -grass, as elsewhere they 



200 CAPE COD. 

are warned to repair the highways. They dug up 
the grass in bunches, which were afterward divided 
into several smaller ones, and set about three feet 
apart, in rows, so arranged as to break joints and 
obstruct the passage of the wind. It spread itself 
rapidly, the weight of the seeds when ripe bending 
the heads of the grass, and so dropping directly by its 
side and vegetating there. In this way, for instance, 
they built up again that part of the Cape between Truro 
and Provincetown where the sea broke over in the last 
century. They have now a public road near there, 
made by laying sods, which were full of roots, bottom 
upward and close together on the sand, double in the 
middle of the track, then spreading brush evenly over 
the sand on each side for half a dozen feet, planting 
beach -grass on the banks in regular rows, as above 
described, and sticking a fence of brush against the 
hollows. 

The attention of the general government was first 
attracted to the danger which threatened Cape Cod 
Harbor from the inroads of the sand, about thirty 
years ago, and commissioners were at that time ap- 
pointed by Massachusetts, to examine the premises. 
They reported in June, 1825, that, owing to "the trees 
and brush having been cut down, and the beach-grass 
destroyed on the seaward side of the Cape, opposite 
the Harbor," the original surface of the ground had 
been broken up and removed by the wind toward the 
Harbor, — during the previous fourteen years, — over 
an extent of "one half a mile in breadth, and about 
four and a half miles in length." — "The space where 
a few years since were some of the highest lands on the 
Cape, covered with trees and bushes," presenting 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 201 

"an extensive waste of undulating sand" ; — and that, 
during the previous twelve months, the sand "had 
approached the Harbor an average distance of fifty 
rods, for an extent of four and a half miles!" and 
unless some measures were adopted to check its prog- 
ress, it would in a few years destroy both the harbor 
and' the town. They therefore recommended that 
beach-grass be set out on a curving line over a space 
ten rods wide and four and a half miles long, and that 
cattle, horses, and sheep be prohibited from gomg 
abroad, and the inhabitants from cutting the brush 

I was told that about thirty thousand dollars m all 
had been appropriated to this object, though it was 
complained that a great part of it was spent foolishly, 
as the public money is wont to be. Some say that 
-while the government is planting beach-grass behmd 
the town for the protection of the harbor, the mhabit- 
ants are rolHng the sand into the harbor in wheel- 
barrows, in order to make house-lots. The Patent- 
Office has recently imported the seed of this grass 
from Holland, and distributed it over the country, 
but probably we have as much as the Hollanders. 

Thus Cape Cod is anchored to the heavens, as it 
were by a myriad Httle cables of beach-grass, and, if 
they 'should fail, would become a total wreck, and 
erelong go to the bottom. Formeriy, the cows were 
permitted to go at large, and they ate many strands 
of the cable by which the Cape is moored, and well- 
nigh set it adrift, as the bull did the boat which was 
moored with a grass rope; but now they are not per- 
mitted to wander. 

A portion of Truro which has considerable taxable 
property on it has lately been added to Provincetown, 



202 CAPE COD. 

and I was told by a Truro man that his townsmen 
talked of petitioning the legislature to set off the next 
mile of their territory also to Provincetown, in order 
that she might have her share of the lean as well as the 
fat, and take care of the road through it ; for its whole 
value is literally to hold the Cape together, and even 
this it has not always done. But Provincetown strenu- 
ously declines the gift. 

The wind blowed so hard from the northeast, that, 
cold as it was, we resolved to see the breakers on the 
Atlantic side, whose din we had heard all the morning; 
so we kept on eastward through the Desert, till we 
struck the shore again northeast of Provincetown, and 
exposed ourselves to the full force of the piercing blast. 
There are extensive shoals there over which the sea 
broke with great force. For half a mile from the shore 
it was one mass of white breakers, which, with the 
wind, made such a din that we could hardly hear 
ourselves speak. Of this part of the coast it is said: 
'*A northeast storm, the most violent and fatal to 
seamen, as it is frequently accompanied with snow, 
blows directly on the land: a strong current sets along 
the shore: add to which that ships, during the opera- 
tion of such a storm, endeavor to work northward, 
that they may get into the bay. Should they be 
unable to weather Race Point, the wind drives them 
on the shore, and a shipwreck is inevitable. Accord- 
ingly, the strand is everywhere covered with the frag- 
ments of vessels." But since the Highland Light 
was erected, this part of the coast is less dangerous, 
and it is said that more shipwrecks occur south of that 
light, where they were scarcely known before. 

This was the stormiest sea that we witnessed, — 



THE SEA AND THE DESERT. 203 

more lumultiious, my companion affirmed, than the 
rapids of Niagara, and, of course, on a far greater 
scale. It was the ocean in a gale, a clear, cold day, 
with only one sail in sight, which labored much, as if 
it were anxiously seeking a harbor. It was high tide 
when we reached the shore, and in one place, for a 
considerable distance, each wave dashed up so high 
that it was difficult to pass between it and the bank. 
Further south, where the bank was higher, it would 
have been dangerous to attempt it. A native of the 
Cape has told me, that many years ago, three boys, 
his playmates, having gone to this beach in Wellfleet 
to visit a wreck, when the sea receded ran down to the 
wreck, and when it came in ran before it to the bank, 
but the sea following fast at their heels, caused the 
bank to cave and bury them alive. 

It was the roaring sea, OdXaaaa rjxM^^^^ ~~ 
afJi<i>l Se T aKpat 
'Htd»/e? Poowmv, epev-yo/xeVr/s aXos €^<o. 

And the summits of the bank 
Around resound, the sea being vomited forth. 

As we Stood looking on this scene we were gradually 
convinced that fishing here and in a pond were not, 
in all respects, the same, and that he who waits for 
fair weather and a calm sea may never see the glancing 
skin of a mackerel, and get no nearer to a cod than 
the wooden emblem in the State-House. 

Having lingered on the shore till we were wellnigh 
chilled to death by the wind, and were ready to take 
shelter in a Charity-house, we turned our weather- 
beaten faces toward Provincetown and the Bay again, 
having now more than doubled the Cape. 



X. 

PROVINCETOWN. 

Early the next morning I walked into a fish-house 
near our hotel, where three or four men were engaged 
in trundling out the pickled fish on barrows, and 
spreading them to dry. They told me that a vessel 
had lately come in from the Banks with forty-four 
thousand codfish. Timothy Dwight says that, just 
before he arrived at Provincetown, "a schooner came 
in from the Great Bank with fifty-six thousand fish, 
almost one thousand five hundred quintals, taken in a 
single voyage; the main deck being, on her return, 
eight inches under water in calm weather." The cod 
in this fish-house, just out of the pickle, lay packed 
several feet deep, and three or four men stood on them 
in cowhide boots, pitching them, on to the barrows 
with an instrument which had a single iron point. 
One young man, who chewed tobacco, spat on the 
fish repeatedly. Well, sir, thought I, when that older 
man sees you he will speak to you. But presently I 
saw the older man do the same thing. It reminded me 
of the figs of Smyrna. '' How long does it take to cure 
these fish?" I asked. 

"Two good drying days, sir," was the answer. 

I walked across the street again into the hotel to 
breakfast, and mine host inquired if I would take 
204 



PR O VINCE TO WN. 2 O 5 

"hashed iSsh or beans." I took beans, though they 
never were a favorite dish of mine. I found next 
summer that this was still the only alternative proposed 
here, and the landlord was still ringing the changes on 
these two words. In the former dish there was a 
remarkable proportion of fish. As you travel inland 
the potato predominates. It chanced that I did not 
taste fresh fish of any kind on the Cape, and I was 
assured that they were not so much used there as in 
the country. That is where they are cured, and where, 
sometimes, travellers are cured of eating them. No 
fresh meat was slaughtered in Provincetown, but the 
little that was used at the public houses was brought 
from Boston by the steamer. 

A great many of the houses here were surrounded by 
fish-flakes close up to the sills on all sides, with only a 
narrow passage two or three feet wide, to the front 
door; so that instead of looking out into a flower or 
grass plot, you looked on to so many square rods of 
cod turned wrong side outwards. These parterres 
were said to be least like a flower-garden in a good 
drying day in mid-summer. There were flakes of 
every age and pattern, and some so rusty and over- 
grown with Hchens that they looked as if they might 
have served the founders of the fishery here. Some 
had broken down under the weight of successive 
harvests. The principal employment of the inhabit- 
ants at this time seemed to be to trundle out their fish 
and spread them in the morning, and bring them in at 
night. I saw how many a loafer who chanced to be 
out early enough, got a job at wheeling out the fish of 
his neighbor who was anxious to improve the whole of 
a fair day. Now then I knew where salt fish were 



206 • CAPE COD. 

caught. They were everywhere lying on their backs, 
their collar-bones standing out like the lapels of a man- 
o' -war-man's jacket, and inviting all things to come 
and rest in their bosoms; and all things, with a few 
exceptions, accepted the invitation. I think, by the 
way, that if you should wrap a large salt fish round a 
small boy, he would have a coat of such a fashion as 
I have seen many a one wear to muster. Salt fish were 
stacked up on the wharves, looking like corded wood, 
maple and yellow birch with the bark left on. I 
mistook them for this at first, and such in one sense 
they were, — fuel to maintain our vital fires, — an 
eastern wood which grew on the Grand Banks. 
Some were stacked in the form of huge flower-pots, 
being laid in small circles with the tails outwards, 
each circle successively larger than the preceding until 
the pile was three or four feet high, when the circles 
rapidly diminished, so as to form a conical roof. 
On the shores of New Brunswick this is covered with 
birch-bark, and stones are placed upon it, and being 
thus rendered impervious to the rain, it is left to season 
before being packed for exportation. 

It is rumored that in the fall the cows here are some- 
times fed on cod's heads ! The godlike part of the cod, 
which, like the human head, is curiously and wonder- 
fully made, forsooth has but little less brain in it, — 
coming to such an end ! to be craunched by cows ! I 
felt my own skull crack from sympathy. What if the 
heads of men were to be cut off to feed the cows of a 
superior order of beings who inhabit the islands in the 
ether? Away goes your fine brain, the house of 
thought and instinct, to swell the cud of a ruminant 
animal ! — However, an inhabitant assured me that 



PR VINCE TO WN. 20/ 

they did not make a practice of feeding cows on cod's 
heads; the cows merely would eat them sometimes; 
but I might h"ve there all my days and never see it 
done. A cow wanting salt would also sometimes lick 
out all the soft part of a cod on the flakes. This he 
would have me believe was the foundation of this fish- 
story. 

It has been a constant traveller's tale and perhaps 
slander, now for thousands of years, the Latins and 
Greeks have repeated it, that this or that nation feeds 
its cattle, or horses, or sheep, on fish, as may be seen in 
(Elian and Phny, but in the Journal of Nearchus, 
who was Alexander's admiral, and made a voyage from 
the Indus to the Euphrates three hundred and twenty- 
six years before Christ, it is said that the inhabitants of 
a portion of the intermediate coast, whom he called 
Ichthyophagi or Fish -eaters, not only ate fishes raw and 
also dried and pounded in a whale's vertebra for a mor- 
tar and made into a paste, but gave them to their 
cattle, there being no grass on the coast; and several 
modem travellers — Braybosa, Niebuhr, and others 
— make the same report. Therefore in balancing the 
evidence I am still in doubt about the Provincetown 
cows. As for other domestic animals. Captain King 
in his continuation of Captain Cook's Journal in 
1779, says of the dogs of Kamtschatka, *' Their food 
in the winter consists entirely of the head, entrails, 
and backbones of saknon, which are put aside and 
dried for that purpose; and with this diet they are 
fed but sparingly." (Cook's Journal, Vol. VII., p. 

315-) 

As we are treating of fishy matters, let me insert 
what Pliny says, that ''the commanders of the fleets of 



208 CAPE COD. 

Alexander the Great have related that the Gedrosi, 
who dwell on the banks of the river Arabis, are in the 
habit of making the doors of their houses with the 
jaw-bones of fishes, and raftering the roofs with their 
bones." Strabo tells the same of the Ichthyophagi. 
''Hardouin remarks, that the Basques of his day 
were in the habit of fencing their gardens with the 
ribs of the whale, which sometimes exceeded twenty 
feet in length ; and Cuvier says, that at the present time 
the jaw-bone of the whale is used in Norway for the 
purpose of making beams or posts for buildings." 
(Bohn's ed., trans, of PHny, Vol. II., p. 361.) Herod- 
otus says the inhabitants on Lake Prasias in Thrace 
(living on piles) ''give fish for fodder to their horses 
and beasts of burden." 

Provincetown was apparently what is called a flour- 
ishing town. Some of the inhabitants asked me if I 
did not think that they appeared to be well off gen- 
erally. I said that I did, and asked how many there 
were in the almshouse. "O, only one or two, infirm 
or idiotic," answered they. The outward aspect of the 
houses and shops frequently suggested a poverty which 
their interior comfort and even richness disproved. 
You might meet a lady daintily dressed in the Sabbath 
morning, wading in among the sand-hills, from church, 
where there appeared no house fit to receive her, yet 
no doubt the interior of the house answered to the 
exterior of the lady. As for the interior of the inhabit- 
ants I am still in the dark about it. I had a little 
intercourse with some whom I met in the street, and 
was often agreeably disappointed by discovering the 
intelligence of rough, and what would be considered 
unpromising, specimens. Nay, I ventured to call on 



PR O VINCE TO WN. 209 

one citizen the next summer, by special invitation. I 
found him sitting in his front doorway, that Sabbath 
evening, prepared for me to come in unto him ; but 
unfortunately for his reputation for keeping open 
house, there was stretched across his gateway a cir- 
cular cobweb of the largest kind and quite entire. 
This looked so ominous that I actually turned aside 
and went in the back way. 

This Monday morning was beautifully mild and 
calm, both on land and water, promising us a smooth 
passage across the Bay, and the fishermen feared that 
it would not be so good a drying day as the cold and 
windy one which preceded it. There could hardly 
have been a greater contrast. This was the first of 
the Indian summer days, though at a late hour in the 
morning we found the wells in the sand behind the 
town still covered with ice, which had formed in the 
night. What with wind and sun my most prominent 
feature fairly cast its slough. But I assure you it will 
take more than two good drying days to cure me of 
rambhng. After making an excursion among the 
hills in the neighborhood of the Shank-Painter Swamp, 
and getting a little work done in its fine, we took our 
seat upon the highest sand-hill overlooking the town, 
in mid air, on a long plank stretched across between 
two hillocks of sand, where some boys were endeavor- 
ing in vain to fly their kite; and there we remained 
the rest of that forenoon looking out over the placid 
harbor, and watching for the first appearance of the 
steamer from Wellfleet, that we might be in readiness 
to go on board when we heard the whistle off Long 
Point. 

We got what we could out of the boys in the mean- 



210 CAPE COD. 

while. Provincetown boys are of course all sailors and 
have sailors' eyes. When we were at the Highland 
Light the last summer, seven or eight miles from Prov- 
incetown Harbor, and wished to know one Sunday 
morning if the Olaia, a well-known yacht, had got in 
from Boston, so that we could return in her, a Province- 
town boy about ten years old, who chanced to be at 
the table, remarked that she had. I asked him how 
he knew. "I just saw her come in," said he. When 
I expressed surprise that he could distinguish her 
from other vessels so far, he said that there were not 
so many of those two topsail schooners about but that 
he could tell her. Palfrey said, in his oration at 
Barnstable, the duck does not take to the water with 
a surer instinct than the Barnstable boy. [He might 
have said the Cape Cod boy as well.] He leaps from 
his leading-strings into the shrouds, it is but a bound 
from the mother's lap to the masthead. He boxes 
the compass in his infant soHloquies. He can hand, 
reef, and steer by the time he flies a kite. 

This was the very day one would have chosen to sit 
upon a hill overlooking sea and land, and muse there. 
The mackerel fleet was rapidly taking its departure, 
one schooner after another, and standing round the 
Cape, Hke fowls leaving their roosts in the morning 
to disperse themselves in distant fields. The turtle- 
like sheds of the salt-works were crowded into every 
nook in the hills, immediately behind the town, and 
their now idle windmills lined the shore. It was 
worth the while to see by what coarse and simple 
chemistry this almost necessary of life is obtained, 
with the sun for journeyman, and a single apprentice 
to do the chores for a large establishment. It is a sort 



PR VINCE TO WN. 2 I I 

of tropical labor, pursued too in the sunniest season ; 
more interesting than gold or diamond-washing, 
which, I fancy, it somewhat resembles at a distance. 
In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is 
ready enough to assist man. So at the potash works 
which I have seen at Hull, where they burn the stems 
of the kelp and boil the ashes. Verily, chemistry 
is not a splitting of hairs when you have got half a 
dozen raw Irishmen in the laboratory. It is said, that 
owing to the reflection of the sun from the sand-hills, 
and there being absolutely no fresh water emptying 
into the harbor, the same number of superficial feet 
yields more salt here than in any other part of the 
county. A little rain is considered necessary to clear 
the air, and make salt fast and good, for as paint does 
not dry, so water does not evaporate in dog-day 
weather. But they were now, as elsewhere on the 
Cape, breaking up their salt-works and selling them 
for lumber. 

From that elevation we could overlook the operations 
of the inhabitants almost as completely as if the roofs 
had been taken off. They were busily covering the 
wicker-worked flakes about their houses with salted 
fish, and we now saw that the back yards were improved 
for this purpose as much as the front; where one 
man's fish ended another's began. In almost every 
yard we detected some little building from which these 
treasures were being trundled forth and systematically 
spread, and we saw that there was an art as well as a 
knack even in spreading fish, and that a division of 
labor was profitably practised. One man was with- 
drawing his fishes a few inches beyond the nose of his 
neighbor's cow which had stretched her neck over a 



212 CAPE COD. 

paling to get at them. It seemed a quite domestic 
employment, like drying clothes, and indeed in some 
parts of the county the women take part in it. 

I noticed in several places on the Cape a sort of 
clothes-/?a^e5. They spread brush on the ground, 
and fence it round, and then lay their clothes on it, 
to keep them from the sand. This is a Cape Cod 
clothes -yard. 

The sand is the great enemy here. The tops of 
some of the hills were enclosed and a board put up 
forbidding all persons entering the enclosure, lest 
their feet should disturb the sand, and set it a-blowing 
or a-sliding. The inhabitants are obliged to get 
leave from the authorities to cut wood behind the town 
for fish-flakes, bean-poles, pea-brush, and the like, 
though, as we were told, they may transplant trees 
from one part of the township to another without 
leave. The sand drifts like snow, and sometimes 
the lower story of a house is concealed by it, though 
it is kept off by a wall. The houses were formerly 
built on piles, in order that the driving sand might 
pass under them. We saw a few old ones here still 
standing on their piles, but they were boarded up now, 
being protected by their younger neighbors. There 
was a school-house, just under the hill on which we 
sat, filled with sand up to the tops of the desks, and of 
course the master and scholars had fled. Perhaps 
they had imprudently left the windows open one day, 
or neglected to mend a broken pane. Yet in one place 
was advertised ''Fine sand for sale here," — I could 
hardly believe my eyes, — probably some of the street 
sifted, — a good instance of the fact that a man con- 
fers a value on the most worthless thing by mixing 



PR VINCE TO WN. 2 1 3 

himself with it, according to which rule we must 
have conferred a value on the whole back-side of Cape 
Cod; — but I thought that if they could have adver- 
tised "Fat Soil," or perhaps "Fine sand got rid of," 
ay, and " Shoes emptied here," it would have been 
more alluring. As we looked down on the town, 
I thought that I saw one man, who probably lived 
beyond the extremity of the planking, steering and 
tacking for it in a sort of snow-shoes, but I may have 
been mistaken. In some pictures of Provincetown 
the persons of the inhabitants are not drawn below 
the ankles, so much being supposed to be buried in the 
sand. Nevertheless, natives of Provincetown assured 
me that they could walk in the middle of the road 
without trouble even in slippers, for they had learned 
how to put their feet down and lift them up without 
taking in any sand. One man said that he should be 
surprised if he found half a dozen grains of sand in 
his pumps at night, and stated, moreover, that the 
young ladies had a dexterous way of emptying their 
shoes at each step, which it would take a stranger a 
long time to learn. The tires of the stage -wheels 
were about five inches wide; and the wagon-tires 
generally on the Cape are an inch or two wider, 
as the sand is an inch or two deeper than elsewhere. 
I saw a baby's wagon with tires six inches wide to 
keep it near the surface. The more tired the wheels, 
the less tired the horses. Yet all the time that we were 
in Provincetown, which was two days and nights, we 
saw only one horse and cart, and they were conveying 
a coffin. They did not try such experiments there on 
common occasions. The next summer I saw only 
the two-wheeled horse-cart which conveyed me thirty 



214 CAPE COD. 

rods into the harbor on my way to the steamer. Yet 
we read that there were two horses and two yoke of 
oxen here in 1791, and we were told that there were 
several more when we were there, beside the stage 
team. In Barber's Historical Collections, it is said, 
''so rarely are wheel -carriages seen in the place that 
they are a matter of some curiosity to the younger part 
of the community. A lad who understood navigating 
the ocean much better than land travel, on seeing a 
man driving a wagon in the street, expressed his 
surprise at his being able to drive so straight without 
the assistance of a rudder." There was no rattle of 
carts, and there would have been no ratde if there had 
been any carts. Some saddle-horses that passed the 
hotel in the evening merely made the sand fly with a 
rusthng sound Hke a writer sanding his paper copiously, 
but there was no sound of their tread. No doubt 
there are more horses and carts there at present. A 
sleigh is never seen, or at least is a great novelty on 
the Cape, the snow being either absorbed by the sand 
or blown into drifts. 

Nevertheless, the inhabitants of the Cape generally 
do not complain of their ''soil," but will tell you that 
it is good enough for them to dry their fish on. 

Notwithstanding all this sand, we counted three 
meeting-houses, and four school-houses nearly as 
large, on this street, though some had a tight board 
fence about them to preserve the plot within level 
and hard. Similar fences, even within a foot of many 
of the houses, gave the town a less cheerful and hos- 
pitable appearance than it would otherwise have had. 
They told us that, on the whole, the sand had made no 
progress for the last ten years, the cows being no longer 



PR VINCE TO WN. 2 I 5 

permitted to go at large, and every means being taken 
to stop the sandy tide. 

In 1727 Provincetown was ''invested with pecuHar 
privileges," for its encouragement. Once or twice it 
was nearly abandoned; but now lots on the street 
fetch a high price, though titles to them were first 
obtained by possession and improvement, and they 
are still transferred by quitclaim deeds merely, the 
township being the property of the State. But though 
lots were so valuable on the street, you might in many 
places throw a stone over them to where a man could 
still obtain land or sand by squatting on or improving 
it. 

Stones are very rare on the Cape. I saw a very 
few small stones used for pavements and for bank 
walls, in one or two places in my walk, but they are 
so scarce, that, as I was informed, vessels have been 
forbidden to take them from the beach for ballast, and 
therefore their crews used to land at night and steal 
them. I did not hear of a rod of regular stone wall 
below Orleans. Yet I saw one man underpinning a 
new house in Eastham with some ''rocks," as he called 
them, which he said a neighbor had collected with 
great pains in the course of years, and finally made over 
to him. This I thought was a gift worthy of being re- 
corded, — equal to a transfer of California "rocks," 
almost. Another man who was assisting him, and 
who seemed to be a close observer of nature, hinted to 
me the locality of a rock in that neighborhood which 
was "forty-two paces in circumference and fifteen 
feet high," for he saw that I was a stranger, and, 
probably, would not carry it off. Yet I suspect that 
the locality of the few large rocks on the forearm of 



2l6 CAPE COD. 

the Cape is well known to the inhabitants generally. 
I even met with one man who had got a smattering of 
mineralogy, but where he picked it up I could not guess. 
I thought that he would meet with some interesting 
geological nuts for him to crack, if he should ever visit 
the mainland, Cohasset or Marblehead, for instance. 

The well stones at the Highland Light were brought 
from Hingham, but the wells and cellars of the Cape 
are generally built of brick, which also are imported. 
The cellars, as well as the wells, are made in a circular 
form, to prevent the sand from pressing in the wall. 
The former are only from nine to twelve feet in diam- 
eter, and are said to be very cheap, since a single tier 
of brick will suffice for a cellar of even larger dimen- 
sions. Of course, if you live in the sand, you will not 
require a large cellar to hold your roots. In Province- 
town, when formerly they suffered the sand to drive 
under their houses, obliterating all rudiment of a cellar, 
they did not raise a vegetable to put into one. One 
farmer in Wellfleet, who raised fifty bushels of potatoes, 
showed me his cellar under a comer of his house, not 
more than nine feet in diameter, looking Hke a cistern ; 
but he had another of the same size under his barn. 

You need dig only a few feet almost anywhere near 
the shore of the Cape to find fresh water. But that 
which we tasted was invariably poor, though the inhab- 
itants called it good, as if they were comparing it with 
salt water. In the account of Truro, it is said, ''Wells 
dug near the shore are dry at low water, or rather at 
'What is called young flood, but are replenished with 
the flowing of the tide," — the salt water, which is 
lowest in the sand, apparently forcing the fresh up. 
When you express your surprise at the greenness of a 



PR O VINCETO WN. 2 I / 

Provincetown garden on the beach, in a dry season, 
they will sometimes tell you that the tide forces the 
moisture up to them. It is an interesting fact that low 
sand-bars in the midst of the ocean, perhaps even 
those which are laid bare only at low tide, are reser- 
voirs of fresh water at which the thirsty mariner can 
supply himself. They appear, like huge sponges, to 
hold the rain and dew which fall on them, and which, 
by capillary attraction, are prevented from mingling 
with the surrounding brine. 

The Harbor of Provincetown — which, as well as 
the greater part of the Bay, and a wide expanse of 
ocean, we overlooked from our perch — is deservedly 
famous. It opens to the south, is free from rocks, and 
is never frozen over. It is said that the only ice seen 
in it drifts in sometimes from Barnstable or Plymouth. 
Dwight remarks that ''The storms which prevail on 
the American coast generally come from the east ; and 
there is no other harbor on a windward shore within 
two hundred miles." J. D. Graham, who has made a 
very minute and thorough survey of this harbor and 
the adjacent waters, states that "its capacity, depth of 
water, excellent anchorage, and the complete shelter 
it affords from all winds, combine to render it one of 
the most valuable ship harbors on our coast." It is 
the harbor of the Cape and of the fishermen of Massa- 
chusetts generally. It was known to navigators several 
years at least before the settlement of Plymouth. In 
Captain John Smith's map of New England, dated 
1614, it bears the name of Milford Haven, and Massa- 
chusetts Bay that of Stuard's Bay. His Highness, 
Prince Charles, changed the name of Cape Cod to 
Cape James ; but even princes have not always power 



2l8 CAPE COD. 

to change a name for the worse, and as Cotton Mather 
said, Cape Cod is *'a name which I suppose it will 
never lose till shoals of codfish be seen swimming on its 
highest hills." 

Many an early voyager was unexpectedly caught by 
this hook, and found himself embayed. On successive 
maps. Cape Cod appears sprinkled over with French, 
Dutch, and English names, as it made part of New 
France, New Holland, and New England. On one 
map Provincetown Harbor is called "Fuic (bownet?) 
Bay," Barnstable Bay "Staten Bay," and the sea north 
of it "Mare del Noort," or the North Sea. On 
another, the extremity of the Cape is called "Staten 
Hoeck," or the States Hook. On another, by Young, 
this has Noord Zee, Staten hoeck or Hit hoeck, but 
the copy at Cambridge has no date ; the whole Cape 
is called "Niew HoUant" (after Hudson); and on 
another still, the shore between Race Point and Wood 
End appears to be called "Bevechier." In Cham- 
plain's admirable Map of New France, including the 
oldest recognizable map of what is now the New Eng- 
land coast with which I am acquainted, Cape Cod is 
called C Blan {i.e. Cape White), from the color of 
its sands, and Massachusetts Bay is Baye Blanche. 
It was visited by De Monts and Champlain in 1605, 
and the next year was further explored by Poitrin- 
court and Champlain. The latter has given a partic- 
ular account of these explorations in his "Voyages," 
together with separate charts and soundings of two 
of its harbors, — Malle Barre, the Bad Bar (Nauset 
Harbor?), a name now appHed to what the French 
called Cap Baturier, — and Port Fortune, apparently 
Chatham Harbor. Both these names are copied on 



PR O VINCE TO WN. 2 1 9 

the map of '*Novi Belgii," in Ogilby's America. He 
also describes minutely the manners and customs 
of the savages, and represents by a plate the savages 
surprising the French and killing five or six of them. 
The French afterw^ard killed som.e of the natives, 
and wished, by way of revenge, to carry off some and 
make them grind in their hand-mill at Port Royal. 
It is remarkable that there is not in Enghsh any ade- 
quate or correct account of the French exploration of 
what is now the coast of New England, between 1604 
and 1608, though it is conceded that they then made 
the first permanent European settlement on the con- 
tinent of North America north of St. Augustine. 
If the lions had been the painters it would have been 
otherwise. This omission is probably to be accounted 
for partly by the fact that the early edition of Cham- 
plain's "Voyages" had not been consulted for this 
purpose. This contains by far the most particular, 
and, I think, the most interesting chapter of what we 
may call the Ante-Pilgrim history of New England, 
extending to one hundred and sixty pages quarto; 
but appears to be unknown equally to the historian 
and the orator on Plymouth Rock. Bancroft does 
not mention Champlain at all among the authorities 
for De Monts's expedition, nor does he say that he 
ever visited the coast of New England. Though 
he bore the title of pilot to De Monts, he was, in an- 
other sense, the leading spirit, as well as the historian 
of the expedition. Holmes, Hildreth, and Barry, and 
apparently all our historians who mention Champlain, 
refer to the edition of 1632, in which all the separate 
charts of our harbors, &c., and about one-half the 
narrative, are omitted; for the author explored so 



-220 CAPE COD. 

many lands afterward that he could afford to forget a 
part of what he had done. Hildreth, speaking of 
De Monts's expedition, says that "he looked into the 
Penobscot [in 1605], which Pring had discovered 
two years before," saying nothing about Champlain's 
extensive exploration of it for De Monts in 1604 
(Holmes says 1608, and refers to Purchas) ; also that 
he followed in the track of Pring along the coast 
"to Cape Cod, which he called Malabarre." (Hali- 
burton had made the same statement before him in 
1829. He called it Cap Blanc, and Malle Barre 
(the Bad Bar) was the name given to a harbor on the 
east side of the Cape.) Pring says nothing about a 
river there. Belknap says that Weymouth discovered 
it in 1605. Sir F. Gorges says, in his narration (Maine 
Hist. Coll., Vol. II., p. 19), 1658, that Pring in 1606 
"made a perfect discovery of all the rivers and har- 
bors." This is the most I can find. Bancroft 
makes Champlain to have discovered more western 
rivers in Maine, not naming the Penobscot; he, 
however, must have been the discoverer of distances 
on this river (see Belknap, p. 147). Pring was absent 
from England only about six months, and sailed by 
this part of Cape Cod (Malebarre) because it yielded 
no sassafras, while the French, who probably had not 
heard of Pring, were patiently for years exploring 
the coast in search of a place of settlement, sounding 
and surveying its harbors. 

John Smith's map, published in 16 16, from observa- 
tions in 1614-15, is by many regarded as the oldest 
map of New England. It is the first that was made 
after this country was called New England, for he so 
called it; but in Champlain's "Voyages," edition 



PR VINCE TO IViV. 2 2 I 

1613, (and Lescarbot, in 161 2, quotes a still earlier 
account of his voyage,) there is a map of it made when 
it was known to Christendom as New France, called 
Carte Geographique de la Nouvelle Franse jaicite 
par le Sieur de Champlain Saint Tongois Cappitaine 
ordinaire pour le roi en la Marine, — jaict Ven 
1612, from his observations between 1604 and 1607; 
a map extending from Labrador to Cape Cod and 
westward to the Great Lakes, and crowded with in- 
formation, geographical, ethnographical, zoological, 
and botanical. He even gives the variation of the 
compass as observed by himself at that date on many 
parts of the coast. This, taken together with the 
many separate charts of harbors and their soundings 
on a large scale, which this volume contains, — among 
the rest. Qui ni he qiiy (Kennebec), Chouacoit R. 
(Saco R.), Le Beau port, Port St. Louis (near Cape 
Ann), and others on our coast, — but which are not 
in the edition of 1632, makes this a completer map 
of the New England and adjacent northern coast 
than was made for half a century afterward, almost, 
we might be allowed to say, till another Frenchman, 
Des Barres, made another for us, which only our 
late Coast Survey has superseded. Most of the maps 
of this coast made for a long time after betray their in- 
debtedness to Champlain. He was a skilful navigator, 
a man of science, and geographer to the King of France. 
He crossed the Atlantic about twenty times, and made 
nothing of it; often in a small vessel in which few 
would dare to go to sea to-day; and on one occasion 
making the voyage from Tadoussac to St. Malo in 
eighteen days. He was in this neighborhood, that is, 
between Annapolis, Nova Scotia, and Cape Cod, 



222 CAPE COD. 

observing the land and its inhabitants, and making 
a map of the coast, from May, 1604, to September, 
1607, or about three and a halj years, and he has 
described minutely his method of surveying harbors. 
By his own account, a part of his map was engraved 
in 1604 (?). When Pont-Grave and others returned 
to France in 1606, he remained at Port Royal with 
Poitrinccurt, '' in order," says he, ''by the aid of God, 
to finish the chart of the coasts which I had begun"; 
and again in his volume, printed before John Smith 
visited this part of America, he says: "It seems 
to me that I have done my duty as far as I could, if I 
have not forgotten to put in my said chart whatever 
I saw, and give a particular knowledge to the public 
of what had never been described nor discovered so 
particularly as I have done it, although some other may 
have heretofore written of it ; but it was a very small 
affair in comparison with what we have discovered 
within the last ten years." 

It is not generally remembered, if known, by the 
descendants of the Pilgrims, that when their fore- 
fathers were spending their first memorable winter in 
the New World, they had for neighbors a colony of 
French no further off than Port Royal (AnnapoHs, 
Nova Scotia), three hundred miles distant (Prince 
seems to make it about five hundred miles) ; where, 
in spite of many vicissitudes, they had been for fifteen 
years. They built a grist-mill there as early as 1606; 
also made bricks and turpentine on a stream, William- 
son says, in 1606. De Monts, who was a Protestant, 
brought his minister with him, who came to blows 
with the Catholic priest on the subject of religion. 
Though these founders of Acadie endured no less than 



PR VINCE TO WN. 223 

the Pilgrims, and about the same proportion of them — 
thirty-five out of seventy -nine (Wilham son's Maine 
says thirty -six out of seventy) — died the first winter 
at St. Croix, 1604-5, sixteen years earher, no orator, 
to my knowledge, has ever celebrated their enterprise 
(Williamson's History of Maine does considerably), 
while the trials which their successors and descendants 
endured at the hands of the English have furnished 
a theme for both the historian and poet. (See Ban- 
croft's History and Longfellow's Evangeline.) The 
remains of their fort at St. Croix were discovered at 
the end of the last century, and helped decide where 
the true St. Croix, our boundary, was. 

The very gravestones of those Frenchmen are 
probably older than the oldest English monument in 
New England north of the EHzabeth Islands, or per- 
haps anywhere in New England, for if there are any 
traces of Gosnold's storehouse left, his strong works 
are gone. Bancroft says, advisedly, in 1834, "It re- 
quires a beUeving eye to discern the ruins of the fort;" 
and that there were no ruins of a fort in 1837. Dr. 
Charles T. Jackson tells me that, in the course of a 
geological survey in 1827, he discovered a gravestone, 
a slab of trap rock, on Goat Island, opposite Annap- 
olis (Port Royal), in Nova Scotia, bearing a Masonic 
coat-of-arms and the date 1606, which is fourteen 
years earlier than the landing of the Pilgrims. This 
was left in the possession of Judge Haliburton, of 
Nova Scotia. 

There were Jesuit priests in what has since been 
called New England, converting the savages at Mount 
Desert, then St. Savior, in 1613, — having come over 
to Port Royal in 161 1, though they were almost 



224 <^^^^ C^D. 

immediately interrupted by the English, years before 
the Pilgrims came hither to enjoy their own reHgion. 
This according to Cham plain. Charlevoix says the 
same; and after coming from France in 1611, went 
west from Port Royal along the coast as far as the 
Kennebec in 1612, and was often carried from Port 
Royal to Mount Desert.. 

Indeed, the Enghshman's history of New England 
commences, only when it ceases to be. New France. 
Though Cabot was the first to discover the continent 
of North America, Champlain, in the edition of his 
"Voyages" printed in 1632, after the Enghsh had for 
a season got possession of Quebec and Port Royal, 
complains with no Httle justice: "The common con- 
sent of all Europe is to represent New France as 
extending at least to the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth 
degrees of latitude, as appears by the maps of the 
world printed in Spain, Italy, Holland, Flanders, 
Germany, and England, until they possessed them- 
selves of the coasts of New France, where are Arca- 
die, the Etchemins (Maine and New Brunswick), 
the Almouchicois (Massachusetts?), and the Great 
River St. Lawrence, where they have imposed, ac- 
cording to their fancy, such names as New England, 
Scotland, and others; but it is not easy to efface the 
memory of a thing which is known to all Christen- 
dom." 

That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable 
shore of Labrador, gave the English no just title to 
New England, or to the United States generally, 
any more than to Patagonia. His careful biographer 
(Biddle) is not certain in what voyage he ran down the 
coast of the United States, as is reported, and no one 



PROVINCETOWN. 22$ 

tells us what he saw. Miller, in the New York Hist. 
Coll., Vol. I., p. 28, says he does not appear to have 
landed anywhere. Contrast with this Verrazzani's 
tarrying fifteen days at one place on the New England 
coast, and making frequent excursions into the interior 
thence. It chances that the latter's letter to Francis 
I., in 1524, contains **the earhest original account 
extant of the Atlantic coast of the United States"; 
and even from that time the northern part of it began 
to be called La Terra Francese, or French Land. A 
part of it was called New Holland before it was called 
New England. The English were very backward to 
explore and settle the continent which they had stum- 
bled upon. The French preceded them both in their 
attempts to colonize the continent of North America 
(Carolina and Florida, 1562-4), and in their first 
permanent settlement (Port Royal, 1605); and the 
right of possession, naturally enough, was the one 
which England mainly respected and recognized in 
the case of Spain, of Portugal, and also of France, 
from the time of Henry VII. 

The explorations of the French gave to the world the 
first valuable maps of these coasts. Denys of Hon- 
fleur made a map of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1506. 
No sooner had Cartier explored the St. Lawrence in 
1535, than there began to be published by his country- 
men remarkably accurate charts of that river as far up 
as Montreal. It is almost all of the continent north of 
Florida that you recognize on charts for more than a 
generation afterward, — though Verrazzani's rude 
plot (made under French auspices) was regarded by 
Hackluyt, more than fifty years after his voyage (in 
1524), as the most accurate representation of our 



226 CAPE COD. 

coast. The French trail is distinct. They went 
measuring and sounding, and when they got home had 
something to show for their voyages and explorations. 
There was no danger of their charts being lost, as 
Cabot's have been. 

The most distinguished navigators of that day were 
Italians, or of Italian descent, and Portuguese. The 
French and Spaniards, though less advanced in the 
science of navigation than the former, possessed more 
imagination and spirit of adventure than the English, 
and were better fitted to be the explorers of a new con- 
tinent even as late as 1751. 

This spirit it was which so early carried the French 
to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi on the north, 
and the Spaniard to the same river on the south. It 
was long before our frontiers reached their settle- 
ments in the west, and a voyageiir or coureur de hois 
is still our conductor there. Prairie is a French word, 
as Sierra is a Spanish one. Augustine in Florida, 
and Santa Fe in New Mexico [1582], both built by 
the Spaniards, are considered the oldest towns in the 
United States. Within the memory of the oldest 
man, the Anglo-Americans were confined between the 
Apalachian Mountains and the sea, "a space not two 
hundred miles broad," while the Mississippi was by 
treaty the eastern boundary of New France. (See 
the pamphlet on settling the Ohio, London, 1763, 
bound up with the travels of Sir John Bartram.) 
So far as inland discovery was concerned, the adventu- 
rous spirit of the English was that of sailors who land 
but for a day, and their enterprise the enterprise of 
traders. Cabot spoke like an Englishman, as he was, 
if he said, as one reports, in reference to the discovery 



PR VINCE TO \VN. 2 2 7 

of the American Continent, when he found it running 
toward the north, that it was a great disappointment 
to him, being in his way to India; but we would 
rather add to than detract from the fame of so great 
a discoverer. 

Samuel Penhallow, in his History (Boston, 1726), 
p. 51, speaking of "Port Royal and Nova Scotia," 
says of the last, that its ''first seizure was by Sir 
Sebastian Cobbet for the crown of Great Britain, in 
the reign of King Henry VII.; but lay dormant till 
the year 162 1," when Sir WilHam Alexander got a 
patent of it, and possessed it some years ; and after- 
ward Sir David Kirk was proprietor of it, but erelong, 
"to the surprise of all thinking men, it was given up 
unto the French." 

Even as late as 1633 we find Winthrop, the first 
Governor of the Massachusetts Colony, who was not 
the most likely to be misinformed, who, moreover, has 
the ]ame, at least, of having discovered Wachusett 
Mountain (discerned it forty miles inland), talking 
about the "Great Lake" and the "hideous swamps 
about it," near which the Connecticut and the "Poto- 
mack" took their rise; and among the memorable 
events of the year 1642 he chronicles Darby Field, 
an Irishman's expedition to the "White hill," from 
whose top he saw eastward what he "judged to be the 
Gulf of Canada," and westward what he "judged to 
be the great lake which Canada River comes out of," 
and where he found much "Muscovy glass," and 
"could rive out pieces of forty feet long and seven or 
eight broad." While the very inhabitants of New 
England were thus fabling about the country a hun- 
dred miles inland, which was a terra incognita to them, 



228 CAPE COD, 

— or rather many years before the earliest date 
referred to, — Champlain, the ^rsl Governor of Can- 
ada, not to. mention the inland discoveries of Cartier/ 
Roberval, and others, of the preceding century, and 
his own earlier voyage, had already gone to war 
against the Iroquois in their forest forts, and pene- 
trated to the Great Lakes and wintered there, before 
a Pilgrim had heard of New England. In Cham- 
plain's "Voyages," printed in 1613, there is a plate 
representing a fight in which he aided the Canada 
Indians against the Iroquois, near the south end of 
Lake Champlain, in July, 1609, eleven years before 
the settlement of Plymouth. Bancroft says he joined 
the Algonquins in an expedition against the Iroquois, 
or Five Nations, in the northwest of New York. 
This is that ''Great Lake," which the EngHsh, 
hearing some rumor of from the French, long after, 
locate in an ''Imaginary Province called Laconia, 
and spent several years about 1630 in the vain attempt 
to discover." (Sir Ferdinand Gorges, in Maine 
Hist. Coll., Vol. II., p. 68.) Thomas Morton has a 
chapter on this "Great Lake:" In the edition of 
Champlain's map dated 1632, the Falls of Niagara 
appear; and in a great lake northwest of Mer Douce 
(Lake Huron) there is an island represented, over 
which is written, ''Isle ou il y a une mine de cuivre,^' — 

' It is remarkable that the first, if not the only, part of 
New England which Cartier saw was Vermont (he also saw 
the mountains of New York), from Montreal Mountain, in 
1535, sixty-seven years before Gosnold saw Cape Cod. 7/ 
seeing is discovering, — and that is all that it is proved that 
Cabot knew of the coast of the United States, — then Cartier 
(to omit Verrazzani and Gomez) was the discoverer of New 
England rather than Gosnold, who is commonly so styled. 



PR VINCE TO WN. 229 

"Island where there is a mine of copper." This will 
do for an offset to our Governor's ''Muscovy Glass." 
Of all these adventures and discoveries we have a 
minute and faithful account, giving facts and dates as 
well as charts and soundings, all scientific and French- 
man-like, with scarcely one fable or traveller's story. 

Probably Cape Cod was visited by Europeans long 
before the seventeenth century. It may be that 
Cabot himself beheld it. Verrazzani, in 1524, ac- 
cording to his own account, spent fifteen days on 
our coast, in latitude 41° 40', (some suppose in the 
harbor of Newport,) and often went five or six leagues 
into the interior there, and he says that he sailed thence 
at once one hundred and fifty leagues northeasterly, 
always in sight oj the coast. There is a chart in Hack- 
luyt's ''Divers Voyages," made according to Verraz- 
zani's plot, which last is praised for its accuracy by 
Hackluyt, but I cannot distinguish Cape Cod on it, 
unless it is the "C. Arenas," which is in the right 
latitude, though ten degrees west of "Claudia," 
which is thought to be Block Island. 

The "Biographic Universelle" informs us that "An 
ancient manuscript chart drawn in 1529 by Diego Ri- 
beiro, a Spanish cosmographer, has preserved the 
memory of the voyage of Gomez [a Portuguese sent 
out by Charles the Fifth]. One reads in it under {au 
dessous) the place occupied by the States of New York, 
Connecticut, and Rhode Island, Terre d'Etienne Go- 
mez, quHl decouvrit en 1525 (Land of Etienne Gomez, 
which he discovered in 1525)." This chart, with a 
memoir, was published at Weimar in the last century. 

Jean Alphonse, Roberval's pilot in Canada in 1642, 
one of the most skilful navigators of his time, and who 



230 CAPE COD. 

has given remarkably minute and accurate direction 
for sailing up the St. Lawrence, showing that he 
knows what he is talking about, says in his '^Routier'' 
(it is in Hackluyt), "I have been at a bay as far as the 
forty-second degree, between Norimbegue [the Pe- 
nobscot?] and Florida, but I have not explored the 
bottom of it, and I do not know whether it passes 
from one land to the other," i.e. to Asia. ("J'ai 
ete a une Baye jusques par les 42® degres entre la 
Norimbegue et la Floride; mais je n'en ai pas cherche 
le fond, et ne S9ais pas si elle passe d'une terre a 
I'autre.") This may refer to Massachusetts Bay, if 
not possibly to the western inclination of the coast a 
little farther south. When he says, "I have no doubt 
that the Norimbegue enters into the river of Canada," 
he is perhaps so interpreting some account which 
the Indians had given respecting the route from the 
St. Lawrence to the Atlantic, by the St. John, or 
Penobscot, or possibly even the Hudson River. 

We hear rumors of this country of *'Norumbega" 
and its great city from many quarters. In a dis- 
course by a great French sea-captain in Ramusio's 
third volume (1556-65), this is said to be the name 
given to the land by its inhabitants, and Verrazzani is 
called the discoverer of it; another in 1607 makes 
the natives call it, or the river, Aguncia. It is repre- 
sented as an island on an accompanying chart. It is 
frequently spoken of by old writers as a country of 
indefinite extent, between Canada and Florida, and 
it appears as a large island with Cape Breton at its 
eastern extremity, on the map m^ade according to 
Verrazzani's plot in Hackluyt's ** Divers Voyages." 
These maps and rumors may have been the origin of 



PR O VINCE 7 O WN. 2 3 I 

the notion, common among the early settlers, that New 
England was an island. The country and city of No- 
rum bega appear about where Maine now is on a map 
in Ortelius ("Theatrum Orbis Terrarum," Antwerp, 
1570), and the "R. Grande" is drawn where the 
Penobscot or St. John might be. 

In 1604, Champlain being sent by the Sieur de 
Monts to explore the coast of Norumbegue, sailed up 
the Penobscot twenty-two or twenty-three leagues from 
"Isle Haute," or till he was stopped by the falls. He 
says: *'I think that this river is that which many 
pilots and historians call Norembegue, and which the 
greater part have described as great and spacious, 
with numerous islands; and its entrance in the forty- 
third or forty-third and one half, or, according to 
others, the forty-fourth degree of latitude, more or 
less." He is convinced that "the greater part" 
of those who speak of a great city there have never 
seen it, but repeat a mere rumor, but he thinks that 
some have seen the mouth of the river since it answers 
to their description. 

Under date of 1607 Champlain writes: "Three or 
four leagues north of the Cap de Poitrincourt [near the 
head of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia] we found a 
cross, which was very old, covered with moss and 
almost all decayed, which was an evident sign that 
there had formerly been Christians there." 

Also the following passage from Lescarbot will show 
how much the neighboring coasts were frequented by 
Europeans in the sixteenth century. Speaking of his 
return from Port Royal to France in 1607, he says: 
"At last, within four leagues of Campseau [the Gut 
of Canso], we arrived at a harbor [in Nova Scotia], 



232 CAPE COD. 

where a worthy old gentleman from St. John de Lus, 
named Captain Savale, was fishing, who received us 
with the utmost courtesy. And as this harbor, which 
is small, but very good, has no name, I have given it on 
my geographical chart the name of Savalet." [It is 
on Cham plain's map also.] This worthy man told 
us that this voyage was the forty-second which he 
had made to those parts, and yet the Newfound- 
landers \TeYre neuviers] make only one a year. He 
was wonderfully content with his fishery, and informed 
us that he made daily fifty crowns' worth of cod, and 
that his voyage would be worth ten thousand francs. 
He had sixteen men in his employ; and his vessel 
was of eighty tons, which could carry a hundred 
thousand dry cod." (Histoire de la Nouvelle France, 
1612.) They dried their fish on the rocks on shore. 

The "Isola della Rena" (Sable Island?) appears on 
the chart of "Nuova Francia" and Norumbega, 
accompanying the "Discourse" above referred to in 
Ramusio's third volume, edition 1556-65. Cham- 
plain speaks of there being at the Isle of Sable, in 
1604, "grass pastured by oxen {bmijs) and cows 
which the Portuguese carried there more than sixty 
years ago," i.e. sixty years before 1613; in a later 
edition he says, which came out of a Spanish vessel 
which was lost in endeavoring to settle on the Isle of 
Sable ; and he states that De la Roche's men, who were 
left on this island seven years from 1598, lived on the 
flesh of these cattle which they found "m quantie/' 
and built houses out of the wrecks of vessels which 
came to the island ("perhaps Gilbert's"), there 
being no wood or stone. Lescarbot says that they 
lived "on fish and the milk of cows left there about 



PROVINCE TO WN. 233 

eighty years before by Baron de Leri and Saint 
Just." Charlevoix says they ate up the cattle and 
then lived on fish. Haliburton speaks of cattle left 
there as a rumor. De Leri and Saint Just had sug- 
gested plans of colonization on the Isle of Sable as 
early as 15 15 (1508?) according to Bancroft, referring 
to Charlevoix. These are but a few of the instances 
which I might quote. 

Cape Cod is commonly said to have been discovered 
in 1602. We will consider at length under what cir- 
cumstances, and with what observation and expecta- 
tions, the first Englishmen whom history clearly 
discerns approached the coast of New England. 
According to the accounts of Archer and Brereton 
(both of whom accompanied Gosnold), on the 26th 
of March, 1602, old style, Captain Bartholomew 
Gosnold set sail from Falmouth, England, for the 
North Part of Virginia, in a small bark called the 
Concord, they being in all, says one account, "thirty- 
two persons, whereof eight mariners and sailors, 
twelve purposing upon the discovery to return with 
the ship for England, the rest remain there for popu- 
lation." This is regarded as "the first attempt of 
the EngUsh to make a settlement within the limits of 
New England." Pursuing a new and a shorter course 
than the usual one by the Canaries, "the 14th of 
April following" they had sight of Saint Mary's, 
an island of the Azores." As their sailors were few 
and "none of the best," (I use their own phrases,) 
and they were "going upon an unknown coast," 
they were not "overbold to stand in with the shore 
but in open weather"; so they made their first dis- 
covery of land with the lead. The 23d of April the 



234 ^^^^ <^^^- 

ocean appeared yellow, but on taking up some of the 
water in a bucket, "it altered not either in color or 
taste from the sea azure." The 7th of May they saw 
divers birds whose names they knew, and many others 
in their "Enghsh tongue of no name." The 8th of 
May "the water changed to a yellowish green, where 
at seventy fathoms" they "had ground." The 9th, 
they had upon their lead "many ghttering stones," — 
"which might promise some mineral matter in the 
bottom." The loth, they were over a bank which 
they thought to be near the western end of St. John's 
Island, and saw schools of fish. The 12th, they say, 
"continually passed fleeting by us sea-oare, which 
seemed to have their movable course towards the 
northeast." On the 13th, they observed "great 
beds of weeds, much wood, and divers things else 
floating by," and "had smelling of the shore much as 
from the southern Cape and Andalusia in Spain." 
On Friday, the 14th, early in the morning they de- 
scried land on the north, in the latitude of forty-three 
degrees, apparently some part of the coast of Maine. 
WilUamson (History of Maine) says it certainly 
could not have been south of the central Isle of 
Shoals. Belknap inclines to think it the south side of 
Cape Ann. Standing fair along by the shore, about 
twelve o'clock the same day, they came to anchor and 
were visited by eight savages, who came off to them 
"in a Biscay shallop, with sail and oars," — "an 
iron grapple, and a kettle of copper." These they at 
first mistook for "Christians distressed." One of 
them was "apparelled with a waistcoat and breeches 
of black serge, made after our sea-fashion, hoes and 
shoes on his feet ; all the rest (saving one that had a 



PR O VINCE TO WN. 235 

pair of breeches of blue cloth) were naked." They 
appeared to have had dealings with "some Basques 
of St. John de Luz, and to understand much more than 
we," say the English, "for want of language, could 
comprehend." But they soon "set sail westward, 
leaving them and their coast." (This was a re- 
markable discovery for discoverers. 

"The 15th day," writes Gabriel Archer, "we had 
again sight of the land, which made ahead, being as we 
thought an island, by reason of a large sound that ap- 
peared westward between it and the main, for coming 
to the west end thereof, we did perceive a large open- 
ing, we called it Shoal Hope. Near this cape we 
came to anchor in fifteen fathoms, where we took 
great store of cod-fish, for which we altered the name 
and called it Cape Cod. Here we saw skulls of her- 
ring, mackerel, and other small fish, in great abun- 
dance. This is a low sandy shoal, but without danger ; 
also we came to anchor again in sixteen fathoms, 
fair by the land in the latitude of forty-two degrees. 
This Cape is well near a mile broad, and Heth north- 
east by east. The Captain went here ashore, and 
found the ground to be full of peas, strawberries, 
whortleberries, &c., as then unripe, the sand also by 
the shore somewhat deep; the firewood there by us 
taken in was of cypress, birch, witch-hazel, and beach. 
A young Indian came here to the captain, armed with 
his bow and arrows, and had certain plates of copper 
hanging at his ears; he showed a willingness to help 
us in our occasions." 

"The i6th we trended the coast southerly, which 
was all champaign and full of grass, but the islands 
somewhat woody." 



236 CAPE COD. 

Or, according to the account of John Brereton, 
"riding here," that is where they first communicated 
with the natives, "in no very good harbor, and withal 
doubting the weather, about three of the clock the 
same day in the afternoon we weighed, and standing 
southerly off into sea the rest of that day and the 
night following, with a fresh gale of wind, in the morn- 
ing we found ourselves embayed with a mighty head- 
land ; but coming to an anchor about nine of the clock 
the same day, within a league of the shore, we hoisted 
out the one half of our shallop, and Captain Bartholo- 
mew Gosnold, myself and three others, went ashore, 
being a white sandy and very bold shore; and march- 
ing all that afternoon with our muskets on our necks, 
on the highest hills which we saw (the weather very 
hot), at length we perceived this headland to be parcel 
of the main, and sundry islands lying almost round 
about it; so returning towards evening to our shallop 
(for by that time the other part was brought ashore 
and set together), we espied an Indian, a young man 
of proper stature, and of a pleasing countenance, 
and after some familiarity with him, we left him at 
the sea side, and returned to our ship, where in five 
or six hours' absence we had pestered our ship so 
with codfish, that we threw numbers of them over- 
board again : and surely I am persuaded that in the 
months of March, April, and May, there is upon this 
coast better fishing, and in as great plenty, as in New- 
foundland ; for the skulls of mackerel, herrings, cod, 
and other fish, that we daily saw as we went and came 
from the shore, were wonderful," &c. 

"From this place we sailed round about this head- 
land, almost all the points of the compass, the shore 



PR VINCE TO WN. 237 

very bold ; but as no coast is free from dangers, so I 
am persuaded this is as free as any. The land some- 
what low, full of goodly woods, but in some places 
plain." 

It is not quite clear on which side of the Cape they 
landed. If it was inside, as would appear from Brere- 
ton's words, "From this place we sailed round about 
this headland almost all the points of the compass," 
it must have been on the western shore either of Truro 
or Wellfleet. To one sailing south into Barnstable 
Bay along the Cape, the only "white, sandy, and very 
bold shore" that appears is in these towns, though the 
bank is not so high there as on the eastern side. At 
a distance of four or five miles the sandy cHffs there look 
like a long fort of yellow sandstone, they are so level 
and regular, especially in Wellfleet, — the fort of the 
land defending itself against the encroachments of 
the Ocean. They are streaked here and there with a 
reddish sand as if painted. Farther south the shore 
is more flat, and less obviously and abruptly sandy, 
and a little tinge of green here and there in the marshes 
appears to the sailor Hke a rare and precious emerald. 
But in the Journal of Pring's Voyage the next year 
(and Salteme, who was with Bring, had accompanied 
Gosnold) it is said, "Departing hence [i.e. from 
Savage Rocks] we bore unto that great gulf which 
Captain Gosnold overshot the year before." ^ 

'"Savage Rock," which some have supposed to be, from 
the name, the Salvages, a ledge about two miles off Rockland, 
Cape Ann, was probably the Nubble, a large, high rock near 
the shore, on the east side of York Harbor, Maine. The 
first land made by Gosnold is presumed by experienced 
navigators to be Cape Elizabeth, on the same coast. (See 
Babson's History of Gloucester, Massachusetts.) 



238 CAPE COD. 

So they sailed round the Cape, calling the south- 
easterly extremity "Point Cave," till they came to an 
island which they named Martha's Vineyard (now 
called No Man's Land), and another on which they 
dwelt awhile, which they named EHzabeth's Island, 
in honor of the queen, one of the group since so called, 
now known by its Indian name Cuttyhunk. There 
they built a small storehouse, the first house built by 
the English in New England, whose cellar could 
recently still be seen, made partly of stones taken from 
the beach. Bancroft says (edition of 1837), the ruins 
of the fort can no longer be discerned. They who 
were to have remained becoming discontented, all 
together set sail for England with a load of sassafras 
and other commodities, on the i8th of June following. 

The next year came Martin Pring, looking for sassa- 
fras, and thereafter they began to come thick and fast, 
until long after sassafras had lost its reputation. 

These are the oldest accounts which we have of 
Cape Cod, unless, perchance. Cape Cod is, as some 
suppose, the same with that "Kial-ar-nes" or Keel- 
Cape, on which, according to old Icelandic manu- 
scripts, Thorwald, son of Eric the Red, after saiHng 
many days southwest from Greenland, broke his keel 
in the year 1004; and where, according to another, in 
some respects less trustworthy manuscript, Thor-finn 
Karlsefue ("that is, one who promises or is destined 
to be an able or great man ;" he is said to have had a 
son bom in New England, from whom Thorwaldsen 
the sculptor was descended), sailing past, in the year 
1007, with his wife Gudrida, Snorre Thorbrandson, 
Biame Grinolfson, and Thorhall Gamlason, distin- 
guished Norsemen, in three ships containing "one 



PROVINCETOWN. 239 

hundred and sixty men and all sorts of live stock" 
(probably the first Norway rats among the rest), 
having the land "on the right side" of them, "roved 
ashore," and found ''Or-ccfi (trackless deserts)," and 
''Strand-ir lang-ar ok sand-ar (long narrow beaches 
and sand-hills)," and "called the shores Furdn- 
strand-ir (Wonder-Strands), because the saihng by 
them seemed long." 

According to the Icelandic manuscripts, Thorwald 
was the first then, — unless possibly one Biarne 
Heriulfson {i.e. son of Heriulf) who had been seized 
with a great desire to travel, sailing from Iceland to 
Greenland in the year 986 to join his father who had 
migrated thither, for he had resolved, says the manu- 
script "to spend the following winter, Hke all the pre- 
ceding ones, with his father," - being driven far to 
the southwest by a storm, when it cleared up saw the 
low land of Cape Cod looming faintly in the distance; 
but this not answering to the description of Greenland, 
he put his vessel about, and, saiUng northward along 
the coast, at length reached Greenland and his father. 
At any rate, he may put forth a strong claim to be 
regarded as the discoverer of the American continent. 
These Northmen were a hardy race, whose younger 
sons inherited the ocean, and traversed it without 
chart or compass, and they are said to have been "the 
first who learned the art of sailing on a wind." More- 
over, they had a habit of casting their door-posts 
overboard and settHng wherever they went ashore. But 
as Biarne, and Thorwald, and Thorfinn have not 
mentioned the latitude and longitude distinctly 
enough, though we have great respect for them as 
skilful and adventurous navigators, we must for the 



240 CAPE COD. 

present remain in doubt as to what capes they did see. 
We think that they were considerably further north. 

If time and space permitted, I could present the 
claims of several other worthy persons. Lescarbot, 
in 1609, asserts that the French sailors had been accus- 
tomed to frequent the Newfoundland Banks from time 
immemorial, "for the codfish with which they feed 
almost all Europe and supply all sea-going vessels," 
and accordingly "the language of the nearest lands is 
half Basque"; and he quotes Postel, a learned but 
extravagant French author, born in 1510, only six 
years after the Basques, Bretons, and Normans are 
said to have discovered the Grand Bank and adjacent 
islands, as saying, in his Charte Geographique, which 
we have not seen: "Terra haec ob lucrosissimam 
piscationis utilitatem summa Utterarum memoria a 
GalHs adiri soUta, et ante mille sexcentos annos fre- 
quentari solita est ; sed eo quod sit urbibus inculta et 
vasta, spreta est." "This land, on account of its 
very lucrative fishery, was accustomed to be visited by 
the Gauls from the very dawn of history, and more than 
sixteen hundred years ago was accustomed to be 
frequented; but because it was unadorned with 
cities, and waste, it was despised." 

It is the old story. Bob Smith discovered the mine, 
but I discovered it to the world. And now Bob Smith 
is putting in his claim. 

But let us not laugh at Postel and his visions. He 
was perhaps better posted up than we ; and if he does 
seem to draw the long-bow, it may be because he had 
a long way to shoot, — quite across the Atlantic. If 
America was found and lost again once, as most of us 
believe, then why not twice? especially as there were 



PROVINCE TO WN. 24 1 

likely to be so few records of an earlier discovery. 
Consider what stuff history is made of, — that for the 
most part it is merely a story agreed on by posterity. 
Who will tell us even how many Russians were en- 
gaged in the battle of the Chemaya, the other day? 
Yet no doubt Mr. Scriblerus, the historian, will fix on 
a definite number for the schoolboys to commit to 
their excellent memories. What, then, of the number 
of Persians at Salamis ? The historian whom I read 
knew as much about the position of the parties and 
their tactics in the last -mentioned affair, as they who 
describe a recent battle in an article for the press now- 
a-days, before the particulars have arrived. I believe 
that, if I were to live the Hfe of mankind over again 
myself, (which I would not be hired to do,) with the 
Universal History in my hands, I should not be able 
to tell what was what. 

Earlier than the date Postel refers to, at any rate, 
Cape Cod lay in utter darkness to the civilized world, 
though even then the sun rose from eastward out of the 
sea every day, and, rolling over the Cape, went down 
westward into the Bay. It was even then Cape and 
Bay, — ay, the Cape of Codfish, and the Bay of the 
Massachusetts, perchance. 

Quite recently, on the nth of November, 1620, old 
style, as is well known, the Pilgrims in the Mayflower 
came to anchor in Cape Cod Harbor. They had loosed 
from Plymouth, England, the 6th of September, and, 
in the words of ''Mourt's Relation," "after many 
difficulties in boisterous storms, at length, by God's 
providence, upon the 9th of November, we espied land, 
which we deemed to be Cape Cod, and so afterward it 
proved. Upon the nth of November we came to 



242 CAPE COD. 

anchor in the bay, which is a good harbor and pleasant 
bay, circled round except in the entrance, which is 
about four miles over from land to land, compassed 
about to the very sea with oaks, pines, juniper, sassa- 
fras, and other sweet wood. It is a harbor wherein 
a thousand sail of ships may safely ride. There we 
relieved ourselves with wood and water, and refreshed 
our people, while our shallop was fitted to coast the 
bay, to search for an habitation." There we put up 
at Fuller's Hotel, passing by the Pilgrim House as 
too high for us (we learned afterward that we need 
not have been so particular), and we refreshed our- 
selves with hashed fish and beans, beside taking in a 
supply of liquids (which were not intoxicating), 
while our legs were refitted to coast the back-side. 
Further say the Pilgrims: "We could not come 
near the shore by three quarters of an English mile, 
because of shallow water; which was a great prejudice 
to us; for our people going on shore were forced to 
wade a bow-shot or two in going aland, which caused 
many to get colds and coughs; for it was many times 
freezing cold weather." They afterwards say: "It 
brought much weakness amongst us"; and no doubt 
it led to the death of some at Plymouth. 

The harbor of Provincetown is very shallow near the 
shore, especially about the head, where the Pilgrims 
landed. When I left this place the next summer, the 
steamer could not get up to the wharf, but we were 
carried out to a large boat in a cart as much as thirty 
rods in shallow water, while a troop of little boys kept 
us company, wading around, and thence we pulled to 
the steamer by a rope. The harbor being thus shal- 
low and sandy about the shore, coasters are accus- 



PROVINCETOWN. 243 

tomed to run in here to paint their vessels, which are 
left high and dry when the tide goes down. 

It chanced that the Sunday morning that we were 
there, I had joined a party of men who were smoking 
and lolling over a pile of boards on one of the wharves, 
{nihil humanum a me, b'c.,) when our landlord, who 
was a sort of tithing-man, went off to stop some sailors 
who were engaged in painting their vessel. Our party 
was recruited from time to time by other citizens, who 
came rubbing their eyes as if they had just got out of 
bed; and one old man remarked to me that it was the 
custom there to He abed very late on Sunday, it being a 
day of rest. I remarked that, as I thought, they might 
as well let the man paint, for all us. It was not noisy 
work, and would not disturb our devotions. But a 
young man in the company, taking his pipe out of his 
mouth, said that it was a plain contradiction of the law 
of God, which he quoted, and if they did not have some 
such regulation, vessels would run in there to tar, and 
rig, and paint, and they would have no Sabbath at all. 
This was a good argument enough, if he had not put it 
in the name of rehgion. The next summer, as I sat 
on a hill there one sultry Sunday afternoon, the meet- 
ing-house windows being open, my meditations were 
interrupted by the noise of a preacher who shouted like 
a boatswain, profaning the quiet atmosphere, and who, 
I fancied, must have taken off his coat. Few things 
could have been more disgusting or disheartening. 
I wished the tithing-man would stop him. 

The Pilgrims say: "There was the greatest store 
of fowl that ever we saw." 

We saw no fowl there, except gulls of various kinds; 
but the greatest store of them that ever we saw was on 



244 CAPE COD. 

a flat but slightly covered with water on the east side 
of the harbor, and we observed a man who had 
landed there from a boat creeping along the shore in 
order to get a shot at them, but they all rose and flew 
away in a great scattering flock, too soon for him, 
having apparently got their dinners, though he did 
not get his. 

It is remarkable that the Pilgrims (or their reporter) 
describe this part of the Cape, not only as well wooded, 
but as having a deep and excellent soil, and hardly 
mention the word sand. Now what strikes the voy- 
ager is the barrenness and desolation of the land. 
They found "the ground or earth sand-hills, much like 
the downs in Holland, but much better the crust of the 
earth, a spit's depth, excellent black earth." We 
found that the earth had lost its crust, — if, indeed, it 
ever had any, — and that there was no soil to speak 
of. We did not see enough black earth in Province- 
town to fill a flower-pot, unless in the swamps. They 
found it "all wooded with oaks, pines, sassafras, 
juniper, birch, holly, vines, some ash, walnut; the 
wood for the most part open and without underwood, 
fit either to go or ride in." We saw scarcely anything 
high enough to be called a tree, except a little low 
wood at the east end of the town, and the few ornamen- 
tal trees in its yards, — only a few small specimens of 
some of the above kinds on the sand-hills in the rear; 
but it was all thick shrubbery, without any large wood 
above it, very unfit either to go or ride in. The greater 
part of the land was a perfect desert of yellow sand, 
rippled like waves by the wind, in which only a little 
Beach -grass grew here and there. They say that, 
just after passing the head of East Harbor Creek, the 



PR O VINCE TO WN. 245 

boughs and bushes "tore" their "very armor in 
pieces" (the same thing happened to such armor as 
\vc wore, when out of curiosity we took to the bushes) ; 
or they came to deep valleys, "full of brush, wood- 
gaile, and long grass," and "found springs of fresh 
water." 

For the most part we saw neither bough nor bush, 
not so much as a shrub to tear our clothes against if 
we would, and a sheep would lose none of its fleece, 
even if it found herbage enough to make fleece 
grow there. We saw rather beach and poverty-grass, 
and merely sorrel enough to color the surface. I 
suppose, then, by Wood-gaile they mean the Bayberry. 

All accounts agree in affirming that this part of the 
Cape was comparatively well wooded a century ago. 
But notwithstanding the great changes which have 
taken place in these respects, I cannot but think that 
we must make some allowance for the greenness of 
the Pilgrims in these matters, which caused them to 
see green. We do not believe that the trees were 
large or the soil was deep here. Their account may 
be true particularly, but it is generally false. They 
saw literally, as well as figuratively, but one side of 
the Cape. They naturally exaggerated the fairness 
and attractiveness of the land, for they were glad to 
get to any land at all after that anxious voyage. 
Everything appeared to them of the color of the rose, 
and had the scent of juniper and sassafras. Very 
different is the general and off-hand account given by 
Captain John Smith, who was on this coast six years 
earlier, and speaks like an old traveller, voyager, 
and soldier, who had seen too much of the world to 
exaggerate, or even to dwell long, on a part of it. In 



246 CAPE COD. 

his ''Description of New England," printed in 1616, 
after speaking of Accomack, since called Plymouth, 
he says: "Cape Cod is the next presents itself, which 
is only a headland of high hills of sand, overgrown with 
shrubby pines, hurts [i.e. whorts, or whortleberries], 
and such trash, but an excellent harbor forall weathers. 
This Cape is made by the main sea on the one side, 
and a great bay on the other, in form of a sickle." 
Cham plain had already written, "Which we named 
Cap Blanc (Cape White), because they were sands 
and downs (sables et dunes) which appeared thus." 

When the Pilgrims get to Plymouth their reporter 
says again, "The land for the crust of the earth is a 
spit's depth," — that would seem to be their recipe 
for an earth's crust, — "excellent black mould and 
fat in some places." However, according to Bradford 
himself, whom some consider the author of part of 
"Mourt's Relation," they who came over in the 
Fortune the next year were somewhat daunted when 
"they came into the harbor of Cape Cod, and there 
saw nothing but a naked and barren place." They 
soon found out their mistake with respect to the good- 
ness of Plymouth soil. Yet when at length, some 
years later, when they were fully satisfied of the poor- 
ness of the place which they had chosen, "the greater 
part," says Bradford, "consented to a removal to a 
place called Nausett," they agreed to remove all 
together to Nauset, now Eastham, which was jump- 
ing out of the frying-pan into the fire; and some of 
the most respectable of the inhabitants of Plymouth did 
actually remove thither accordingly. 

It must be confessed that the Pilgrims possessed but 
few of the qualities of the modern pioneer. They 



PR VINCETO WN. 247 

were not the ancestors of the American backwoodsmen. 
They did not go at once into the woods with their axes. 
They were a family and church, and were more 
anxious to keep together, though it were on the sand, 
than to explore and colonize a New World. When the 
above-mentioned company removed to Eastham, the 
church at Plymouth was left, to use Bradford's ex- 
pression, 'Mike an ancient mother grown old, and 
forsaken of her children." Though they landed on 
Clark's Island in Plymouth harbor, the 9th of De- 
cember (O.S.), and the i6th all hands came to 
Plymouth, and the i8th they rambled about the main- 
land, and the 19th decided to settle there, it was the 
8th of January before Francis Billington went with 
one of the master's mates to look at the magnificent 
pond or lake now called "Billington Sea," about two 
miles distant, which he had discovered from the top 
of a tree, and mistook for a great sea. And the 7th of 
March "Master Carver with five others went to the 
great ponds which seem to be excellent fishing," 
both which points are within the compass of an ordi- 
nary afternoon's ramble, — however wild the country. 
It is true they were busy at first about their building, 
and were hindered in that by much foul weather; but 
a party of emigrants to CaHfornia or Oregon, with no 
less work on their hands, — and more hostile Indians, 
— would do as much exploring the first afternoon, and 
the Sieur de Cham plain would have sought an inter- 
view with the savages, and examined the country as 
far as the Connecticut, and made a map of it, before 
Billington had climbed his tree. Or contrast them 
only with the French searching for copper about 
the Bay of Fundy in 1603, tracing up small streams 



248 CAPE COD, 

with Indian guides. Nevertheless, the Pilgrims were 
pioneers, and the ancestors of pioneers, in a far 
grander enterprise. 

By this time we saw the little steamer Naushon en- 
tering the harbor, and heard the sound of her whistle, 
and came down from the hills to meet her at the wharf. 
So we took leave of Cape Cod and its inhabitants. 
We liked the manners of the last, what little we saw of 
them, very much. They were particularly downright 
and good-humored. The old people appeared re- 
markably well preserved, as if by the saltness of the 
atmosphere, and after having once mistaken, we could 
never be certain whether we were talking to a coeval 
of our grandparents, or to one of our own age. They 
are said to be more purely the descendants of the Pil- 
grims than the inhabitants of any other part of the 
State. We were told that "sometimes, when the court 
comes together at Barnstable, they have not a single 
criminal to try, and the jail is shut up." It was "to 
let" when we were there. Until quite recently there 
was no regular lawyer below Orleans. Who then 
will complain of a few regular man-eating sharks 
along the back -side? 

One of the ministers of Truro, when I asked what 
the fishermen did in the winter, answered that they 
did nothing but go a-visiting, sit about and tell stories, 
— though they worked hard in summer. Yet it is not 
a long vacation they get. I am sorry that I have not 
been there in the winter to hear their yams. Almost 
every Cape man is Captain of some craft or other, — 
every man at least who is at the head of his own affairs, 
though it is not every one that is, for some heads have 
the force of Alpha privative, negativing all the efforts 



PR VINCE TO WN. 249 

which Nature would fain make through them. The 
greater number of men are merely corporals. It is 
worth the while to talk with one whom his neighbors 
address as Captain, though his craft may have long 
been sunk, and he may be holding by his teeth to the 
shattered mast of a pipe alone, and only gets half- 
seas-over in a figurative sense, now. He is pretty 
sure to vindicate his right to the title at last, — can 
tell one or two good stories at least. 

For the most part we saw only the back-side of the 
towns, but our story is true as far as it goes. We might 
have made more of the Bay side, but we were inclined 
to open our eyes widest at the Atlantic. We did not 
care to see those features of the Cape in which it is 
inferior or merely equal to the mainland, but only those 
in which it is peculiar or superior. We cannot say 
how its towns look in front to one who goes to meet 
them ; we went to see the ocean behind them. They 
were merely the raft on which we stood, and we took 
notice of the barnacles which adhered to it, and some 
carvings upon it. 

Before we left the wharf we made the acquaintance 
of a passenger whom we had seen at the hotel. When 
we asked him which way he came to Provincetown, 
he answered that he was cast ashore at Wood End, 
Saturday night, in the same storm in which the St. 
John was wrecked. He had been at work as a carpen- 
ter in Maine, and took passage for Boston in a schooner 
laden with lumber. When the storm came on, they 
endeavored to get into Provincetown harbor. *'It 
was dark and misty," said he, "and as we were steer- 
ing for Long Point Light we suddenly saw the land 
near us, — for our compass was out of order, — 



250 CAPE COD. 

varied several degrees [a mariner always casts the 
blame on his com-pass], — but there being a mist on 
shore, we thought it was farther off than it was, and 
so held on, and we immediately struck on the bar. 
Says the Captain, 'We are all lost.' Says I to the 
Captain, 'Now don't let her strike again this way; 
head her right on.' The Captain thought a moment, 
and then headed her on. The sea washed completely 
over us, and wellnigh took the breath out of my body. 
I held on to the running rigging, but I have learned 
to hold on to the standing rigging the next time." 
"Well, were there any drowned?" I asked. "No; 
we all got safe to a house at Wood End, at midnight, 
wet to our skins, and half frozen to death." He had 
apparently spent the time since playing checkers at 
the hotel, and was congratulating himself on having 
beaten a tall fellow -boarder at that game. "The 
vessel is to be sold at auction to-day," he added. (We 
had heard the sound of the crier's bell which adver- 
tised it.) "The Captain is rather down about it, 
but I tell him to cheer up and he will soon get another 
vessel." 

At that moment the Captain called to him from the 
wharf. He looked like a man just from the country, 
with a cap made of a woodchuck's skin, and now that 
I had heard a part of his history, he appeared singularly 
destitute, — a Captain without any vessel, only a 
great-coat ! and that perhaps a borrowed one ! Not 
even a dog followed him; only his title stuck to him. 
I also saw one of the crew. They all had caps of the 
same pattern, and wore a subdued look, in addition 
to their naturally aquiUne features, as if a breaker — 
a "comber" — had washed over them. As we passed 



PR VINCE TO WN. 2 5 1 

Wood End, we noticed the pile of lumber on the shore 
which had made the cargo of their vessel. 

About Long Point in the summer you commonly see 
them catching lobsters for the New York market, from 
small boats just off the shore, or rather, the lobsters 
catch themselves, for they cling to the netting on which 
the bait is placed of their own accord, and thus are 
drawn up. They sell them fresh for two cents apiece. 
Man needs to know but little more than a lobster in 
order to catch him in his traps. The mackerel fleet 
had been getting to sea, one after another, ever since 
midnight, and as we were leaving the Cape we passed 
near to many of them under sail, and got a nearer view 
than we had had; — half a dozen red-shirted men and 
boys, leaning over the rail to look at us, the skipper 
shouting back the number of barrels he had caught, in 
answer to our inquiry. All sailors pause to watch a 
steamer, and shout in welcome or derision. In one a 
large Newfoundland dog put his paws on the rail and 
stood up as high as any of them, and looked as wise. 
But the skipper, who did not wish to be seen no better 
employed than a dog, rapped him on the nose and sent 
him below. Such is human justice ! I thought I could 
hear him making an effective appeal down there from 
human to divine justice. He must have had much the 
cleanest breast of the two. 

Still, many a mile behind us across the Bay, we saw 
the white sails of the mackerel fishers hovering round 
Cape Cod, and when they were all hull-down, and the 
low extremity of the Cape was also down, their white 
sails still appeared on both sides of it, around where it 
had sunk, Hke a city on the ocean, proclaiming the rare 
qualities of Cape Cod Harbor. But before the ex- 



252 ^ CAPE COD, 

tremity of the Cape had completely sunk, it appeared 
like a filmy sliver of land l)ing flat on the ocean, and 
later still a mere reflection of a sand-bar on the haze 
above. Its name suggests a homely truth, but it 
would be more poetic if it described the impression 
which it makes on the beholder. Some capes have 
peculiarly suggestive names. There is Cape Wrath, 
the northwest point of Scotland, for instance; what 
a good name for a cape lying far away dark over the 
water under a lowering sky ! 

Mild as it was on shore this morning, the wind was 
cold and piercing on the water. Though it be the 
hottest day in July on land, and the voyage is to last 
but four hours, take your thickest clothes with you, for 
you are about to float over melted icebergs. When I 
left Boston in the steamboat on the 25th of June the 
next year, it was a quite warm day on shore. The 
passengers were dressed in their thinnest clothes, and 
at first sat under their umbrellas, but when we were 
fairly out on the Bay, such as had only their coats were 
suffering with the cold, and sought the shelter of the 
pilot's house and the warmth of the chimney. But 
when we approached the harbor of Provincetown, I 
was surprised to perceive what an influence that low 
and narrow strip of sand, only a mile or two in width, 
had over the temperature of the air for many miles 
around. We penetrated into a sultry atmosphere 
where our thin coats were once more in fashion, and 
found the inhabitants sweltering. 

Leaving far on one side Manomet Point in Plymouth 
and the Scituate shore, after being out of sight of land 
for an hour or two, for it was rather hazy, we neared 
the Cohasset Rocks again at Minot's Ledge, and saw 



PROVINCETOWN. 253 



the great Tupelo.-tree on the edge of Scituate which 
Hfts its dome, like an umbeUiferous plant, high over 
the surrounding forest, and is conspicuous for many 
miles over land and water. Here was the new ron 
light-house, then unfinished, m the shape o an egg- 
shell painted red, and placed high on iron pillars, like 
the ovum of a sea monster floating on the waves - 
destined to be phosphorescent^ As we Pa^^^d 1 at 
half-tide we saw the spray tossed up nearly to the shel . 
A man was to live in that egg-shell day and night 
a mile from the shore. When I passed it the next 
summer it was finished and two men lived in it and 
a light-house keeper said that they to d him that n a 
recent gale it had rocked so as to shake the plates off 
he table. Think of making your bed thus m the cres 
of a breaker! To have the waves, like a pack of 
hungry wolves, eying you always night and day 
Ld tarn time to time making a spring at you ah.o 
sure to have you at last. And not one of all those 
voyagers can come to your reUef, - but when yon 
iX go s out, it will be a sign that the hght of your 
life h!s gone out also. What a place to compose a 
tk on breakers ! This Hght-house was the cy^sure 
of all eves. Every passenger watched it for half an 
"houraTleast; yef a^olored -k belonging to the 
boat, whom I had seen come out of his quarters 
several times to empty his dishes over the side with a 
flourish, chancing to come out just as we w-ere abrea_st 
of this ight, and not more than forty rods from it. 
aid were^li gazing at it, as he drew back hi^am, 
caughtsightofit,andwithsurpnsee.xcla.med, \\hats 
that'" He had been employed on this boat for a 
year' and passed this light every weekday, but as he 



254 ^"^P^ ^o^' 

had never chanced to empty his dishes just at that 
point, had never seen it before. To look at Hghts was 
the pilot's business; he minded the kitchen fire. 
It suggested how little some who voyaged round 
the world could manage to see. You would almost 
as easily believe that there are men who never yet 
chanced to come out at the right time to see the sun. 
What avails it though a light be placed on the top of a 
hill, if you spend all your life directly under the hill? 
It might as well be under a bushel. This Hght-house, 
as is well known, was swept away in a storm in April, 
1851, and the two men in it, and the next morning 
not a vestige of it was to be seen from the shore. 

A Hull man told me that he helped set up a white- 
oak pole on Minot's Ledge some years before. It 
was fifteen inches in diameter, forty-one feet high, 
sunk four feet in the rock, and was secured by four 
guys, — but it stood only one year. Stone piled up 
cob-fashion near the same place stood eight years. 

When I crossed the Bay in the Melrose in July, we 
hugged the Scituate shore as long as possible, in order 
to take advantage of the wind. Far out on the Bay 
(off this shore) we scared up a brood of young ducks, 
probably black ones, bred hereabouts, which the 
packet had frequently disturbed in her trips. A 
townsman, who was making the voyage for the first 
time, walked slowly round into the rear of the helms- 
man, when we were in the middle of the Bay, and 
looking out over the sea, before he sat down there, 
remarked with as much originality as was possible 
for one who used a borrowed expression, "This is a 
great country." He had been a timber merchant, 
and I afterwards saw him taking the diameter of the 



PR VINCE TO WN. 255 

mainmast with his stick, and estimating its height. 
I returned from the same excursion in the Olata, 
a very handsome and swift-sailing yacht, which 
left Provincetown at the same time with two other 
packets, the Melrose and Frolic. At first there was 
scarcely a breath of air stirring, and we loitered about 
Long Point for an hour in company, — with our 
heads over the rail watching the great sand-circles 
and the fishes at the bottom in calm water fifteen 
feet deep. But after clearing the Cape we rigged a 
flying-jib, and, as the Captain had prophesied, soon 
showed our consorts our heels. There was a steamer 
six or eight miles northward, near the Cape, towing 
a large ship toward Boston. Its smoke stretched 
perfectly horizontal several miles over the sea, and 
by a sudden change in its direction, warned us of a 
change in the wind before we felt it. The steamer 
appeared very far from the ship, and some young 
men who had frequently used the Captain's glass, 
but did not suspect that the vessels were connected, 
expressed surprise that they kept about the same dis- 
tance apart for so many hours. At which the Cap- 
tain dryly remarked, that probably they would never 
get any nearer together. As long as the wind held 
we kept pace with the steamer, but at length it died 
away almost entirely, and the flying-jib did all the work . 
When we passed the light-boat at Minot's Ledge, the 
Melrose and Frolic were just visible ten miles astern. 
Consider the islands bearing the names of all the 
saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or 
echinid(B, yet the poHce will not let a couple of Irish- 
men have a private sparring-match on one of them, as 
it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are 



256 CAPE COD. 

in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently 
between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come 
to feel the warmth of their breasts. 

The Bermudas are said to have been discovered by a 
Spanish ship of that name which was wrecked on them, 
"which till then," says Sir John Smith, "for six thou- 
sand years had been nameless." TheEngHsh did not 
stumble upon them in their first voyages to Virginia; 
and the first Englishman who was ever there was 
wrecked on them in 1593. Smith says, "No place 
known hath better walls nor a broader ditch." Yet 
at the very first planting of them with some sixty 
persons, in 1612, the first Governor, the same year, 
"built and laid the foundation of eight or nine forts." 
To be ready, one would say, to entertain the first 
ship's company that should be next shipwrecked on to 
them. It would have been more sensible to have 
built as many " Charity -houses." These are the vexed 
Bermoothees. 

Our great sails caught all the air there was, and our 
low and narrow hull caused the least possible friction. 
Coming up the harbor against the stream we swept by 
everything. Some young men returning from a 
fishing excursion came to the side of their smack, 
while we were thus steadily drawing by them, and, 
bowing, observed, with the best possible grace, "We 
give it up."' Yet sometimes we were nearly at a stand- 
still. The sailors watched (two) objects on the shore 
to ascertain whether we advanced or receded. In the 
harbor it was like the evening of a holiday. The 
Eastern steamboat passed us with music and a cheer, 
as if they were going to a ball, when they might be 
going to Davy's locker. 



PR VINCE TO WN. 257 

I heard a boy telling the story of Nix's mate to some 
girls as we passed that spot. That was the name of a 
sailor hung there, he said. — "If I am guilty, this 
island will remain ; but if I am innocent, it will be 
washed away," and now it is all washed away ! 

Next (?) came the fort on George's Island. These 
are bungling contrivances: not our ]orlcs, but our 
foibles. Wolfe sailed by the strongest fort in North 
America in the dark, and took it. 

I admired the skill with which the vessel was at last 
brought to her place in the dock, near the end of Long 
Wharf. It was candle-light, and my eyes could not 
distinguish the wharves jutting out toward us, but it 
appeared like an even line of shore densely crowded 
with shipping. You could not have guessed within a 
quarter of a mile of Long Wharf. Nevertheless, we 
were to be blown to a crevice amid them, — steering 
right into the maze. Down goes the mainsail, and 
only the jib draws us along. Now we are within four 
rods of the shipping, having already dodged several 
outsiders; but it is still only a maze of spars, and 
rigging, and hulls, — not a crack can be seen. Down 
goes the jib, but still we advance. The Captain stands 
aft with one hand on the tiller, and the other holding 
his night-glass, — his son stands on the bowsprit strain- 
ing his eyes, — the passengers feel their hearts half- 
way to their mouths, expecting a crash. "Do you 
see any room there?" asks the Captain, quietly. 
He must make up his mind in five seconds, else he will 
carry away that vessel's bowsprit, or lose his own. 
"Yes, sir, here is a place for us ; " and in three minutes 
more we are fast to the wharf in a little gap between 
two bigger vessels. 



258 CAPE COD. 

And now we were in Boston. Whoever has been 
down to the end of Long Wharf, and walked through 
Quincy Market, has seen Boston. 

Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, New 
Orleans, and the rest, are the names of wharves 
projecting into the sea (surrounded by the shops and 
dwellings of the merchants), good places to take in 
and to discharge a cargo (to land the products of other 
climes and load the exports of our own). I see a great 
many barrels and fig-drums, — piles of wood for 
umbrella-sticks, — blocks of granite and ice, — great 
heaps of goods, and the means of packing and con- 
veying them, — much wrapping-paper and twine, 
— many crates and hogsheads and trucks, — and 
that is Boston. The more barrels, the more Boston. 
The museums and scientific societies and hbraries 
are accidental. They gather around the sands to 
save carting. The wharf-rats and customhouse 
officers, and broken-down poets, seeking a fortune 
amid the barrels. Their better or worse lyceums, and 
preachings, and doctorings, these, too, are accidental, 
and the malls of commons are always small potatoes. 
When I go to Boston, I naturally go straight through 
the city (taking the Market in my way), down to the 
end of Long Wharf, and look off", for I have no cousins 
in the back alleys, — and there I see a great many 
countrymen in their shirt-sleeves from Maine, and 
Pennsylvania, and all along shore and in shore, 
and some foreigners beside, loading and unloading 
and steering their teams about, as at a country fair. 

When we reached Boston that October, I had a gill 
of Provincetown sand in my shoes, and at Concord 
there was still enough left to sand my pages for many a 



PR VINCE TO WN. 259 

day; and I seemed to hear the sea roar, as if I Hved in 
a shell, for a week afterw^ard. 

The places which I have described may seem strange 
and remote to my townsmen, — indeed, from Boston 
to Provincetown is twice as far as from England to 
France; yet step into the cars, and in six hours you 
may stand on those four planks, and see the Cape which 
Gosnold is said to have discovered, and which I have 
so poorly described. If you had started when I first 
advised you, you might have seen our tracks in the 
sand, still fresh, and reaching all the way from the 
Nauset Lights to Race Point, some thirty miles, — 
for at every step we made an impression on the Cape, 
though we were not aware of it, and though our account 
may have made no impression on your minds. But 
what is our account ? In it there is no roar, no beach- 
birds, no tow -cloth. 

We often love to think now of the life of men on 
beaches, — at least in midsummer, when the weather 
is serene; their sunny lives on the sand, amid the 
beach-grass and the bayberries, their companion a 
cow, their wealth a jag of drift-wood or a few beach- 
plums, and their music the surf and the peep of the 
beach -bird. 

We went to see the Ocean, and that is probably the 
best place of all our coast to go to. If you go by 
water, you may experience what it is to leave and to 
approach these shores ; you may see the Stormy Petrel 
by the way, BaXaaaohpofxa, running over the sea, and 
if the weather is but a little thick, may lose sight of the 
land in mid-passage. I do not know where there is 
another beach in the Atlantic States, attached to the 
mainland, so long, and at the same time so straight, 



260 CAPE COD. 

and completely uninterrupted by creeks or coves or 
fresh-water rivers or marshes; for though there may 
be clear places on the map, they would probably 
be found by the foot traveller to be intersected by 
creeks and marshes; certainly there is none where 
there is a double way, such as I have described, a 
beach and a bank, which at the same time shows you 
the land and the sea, and part of the time two seas. 
The Great South Beach of Long Island, which I have 
since visited, is longer still without an inlet, but it is 
literally a mere sand-bar, exposed, several miles from 
the Island, and not the edge of a continent wasting 
before the assaults of the Ocean. Though wild and 
desolate, as it wants the bold bank, it possesses but 
half the grandeur of Cape Cod in my eyes, nor is 
the imagination contented with its southern aspect. 
The only other beaches of great length on our Atlantic 
coast, which I have heard sailors speak of, are those 
of Barnegat on the Jersey shore, and Currituck be- 
tween Virginia and North Carolina; but these, like 
the last, are low and narrow sand-bars, lying off the 
coast, and separated from the mainland by lagoons. 
Besides, as you go farther south the tides are feebler, 
and cease to add variety and grandeur to the shore. 
On the Pacific side of our country also no doubt there 
is good walking to be found; a recent writer and 
dweller there tells us that "the coast from Cape 
Disappointment (or the Columbia River) to Cape 
Flattery (at the Strait of Juan de Fuca) is nearly 
north and south, and can be travelled almost its entire 
length on a beautiful sand-beach," with the exception 
of two bays, four or five rivers, and a few points 
jutting into the sea. The common shell-fish found 



PROVINCE TO WN. 26 1 

there seem to be often of corresponding types, if not 
identical species, with those of Cape Cod. The beach 
which I have described, however,, is not hard enough 
for carriages, but must be explored on foot. When 
one carriage has passed along, a following one sinks 
deeper still in its rut. It has at present no name any 
more than fame. That portion south of Nauset 
Harbor is commonly called Chatham Beach. The 
part in Eastham is called Nauset Beach, and off 
Wellfleet and Truro the Back -side, or sometimes, 
perhaps. Cape Cod Beach. I think that part which 
extends without interruption from Nauset Harbor to 
Race Point should be called Cape Cod Beach, and do 
so speak of it. 

One of the most attractive points for visitors is in 
the northeast part of Wellfleet, where accommodations 
(I mean for men and women of tolerable health and 
habits) could probably be had within half a mile of 
the sea-shore. It best combines the country and the 
seaside. Though the Ocean is out of sight, its faintest 
murmur is audible, and you have only to climb a hill 
to find yourself on its brink. It is but a step from the 
glassy surface of the Herring Ponds to the big 
Atlantic Pond where the waves never cease to break. 
Or perhaps the Highland Light in Truro may com- 
pete with this locahty, for there there is a more un- 
interrupted view of the Ocean and the Bay, and in the 
summer there is always some air stirring on the edge 
of the bank there, so that the inhabitants know not 
what hot weather is. As for the view, the keeper of 
the Hght, with one or more of his family, walks out 
to the edge of the bank after every meal to look ofif, 
just as if they had not lived there all their days. 



262 CAPE COD. 

In short, it will wear well. And what picture will 
you substitute for that, upon your walls? But 
ladies cannot get down the bank there at present 
without the aid of a block and tackle. 

Most persons visit the sea-side in warm weather, 
when fogs are frequent, and the atmosphere is wont to 
be thick, and the charm of the sea is to some extent 
lost. But I suspect that the fall is the best season, 
for then the atmosphere is more transparent, and it is 
a greater pleasure to look out over the sea. The 
clear and bracing air, and the storms of autumn 
and winter even, are necessary in order that we may 
get the impression which the sea is calculated to make. 
In October, when the weather is not intolerably cold, 
and the landscape wears its autumnal tints, such as, 
methinks, only a Cape Cod landscape ever wears, 
especially if you have a storm during your stay, — 
that I am convinced is the best time to visit this shore. 
In autumn, even in August, the thoughtful days begin, 
and we can walk anywhere with profit. Beside, an 
outward cold and dreariness, which make it necessary 
to seek shelter at night, lend a spirit of adventure to a 
walk. 

The time must come when this coast will be a place 
of resort for those New-Englanders who really wish 
to visit the sea -side. At present it is wholly unknown 
to the fashionable world, and probably it will never be 
agreeable to them. If it is merely a ten -pin alley, or a 
circular railway, or an ocean of mint-julep, that the 
visitor is in search of, — if he thinks more of the wine 
than the brine, as I suspect some do at Newport, — 
I trust that for a long time he will be disappointed 
here. But this shore will never be more attractive 



PR O VINCE TO WN. 263 

than it is now. Such beaches as are fashionable 
are here made and unmade in a day, I may almost 
say, by the sea shifting its sands. Lynn and Nan- 
tasket ! this bare and bended arm it is that makes 
the bay in which they lie so snugly. What are springs 
and waterfalls? Here is the spring of springs, the 
waterfall of waterfalls. A storm in the fall or winter 
is the time to visit it; a light-house or a fisherman's 
hut the true hotel. A man may stand there and put 
all America behind him. 



NOV le 190V 



>': i-^ 



